gives an account to Wederbourne by his Letters of the twentieth of April being the morrow after his Majesty had Signed the said Memorial It seems that Wederbourne had given our Archbishop notice of some defects which he had found in the Book of Consecration of Archbishops Bishops c. as it was then used amongst the Scots viz. 1. That the Order of Deacons was made but a Lay-Office at the best as by that Book might be understood And 2. That in the Admission to the Priesthood the very essential Words of conferring Orders were left out With which the King being made acquainted he gave command to the Archbishop to make known unto them That he would have them either to admit the English Book or else to rectifie their own in those two great oversights After which taking the whole business of that Church into his consideration it pleased him to direct his Further Instructions to the Archbishops and Bishops of it bearing date on the eighteenth of October following In which he requires them to take care That the Proclamation to be made for Authorising the Service-Book should not derogate in any thing from his Royal Prerogative 2. That in their Kalendar they should keep such Catholick Saints as were in the English such of the Saints as were most peculiar to that Kingdom especially those which were of the Royal Blood and some of the most holy Bishops being added to them but that in no case St. George and St. Patrick be omitted 3. That in their Book of Ordination in giving Orders to Presbyters they should keep the words of the English Book without change Receive the Holy Ghost c. 4. That they should insert among the Lessons ordinarily to be read in the Service out of the Book of Wisdom the first second third fourth fifth and sixth Chapters and out of the Book of Ecclesiasticus the first second fifth eighth thirty fifth and forty ninth Chapters 5. That every Bishop within his Family twice a day cause the Service to be read and that all Archbishops and Bishops make all Universities and Colledges within their Diocesies to use daily twice a day the Service 6. That the Preface to the Book of Common Prayer Signed by his Majesties Hand and the Proclamation for Authorising the same should be Printed and inserted in the Book of Common-Prayer According to which Instructions and the Corrections above-mentioned this Liturgie at the last after it had been twenty years in consideration was fully finished and concluded and being thus finished and concluded was Ratified and Confirmed by his Majesties Royal Edict as followeth viz. CHARLES By the Grace of God King of Great Britain France and Ireland Defender of the Faith c. To Our Lovits Messengers Our Sheriffs in that part conjunctly and severally specially constitute Greeting Forasmuch as We ever since Our entry to the Imperial Crown of this Our ancient Kingdom of Scotland especially since Our late being here in the same have divers times recommended to the Archbishops and Bishops there the publishing of a Publick Form of Service in the Worship of God which We would have uniformly observed therein and the same being now condescended unto Although We doubt not but all our Subjects both Clergie and others will receive the said Publick Form of Service yet thinking it necessary to make Our Pleasure known touching the Authority thereof Our Will is and We straightly command That incontinent these Our Letters seen you pass and in Our Name and Authority command and charge all our Subjects both Ecclesiastical and Civil by open Proclamation at the Market-Crosses of the Head Burroughs of this Our Kingdom and other Places needful to conform themselves to the said Publick Form of Worship which is the only Form which We having taken the Counsel of Our Clergie think fit to be used in Gods Publick Worship in this Our Kingdom Commanding also all Archbishops and Bishops and other Presbyters and Church-men to take a special care that the same be duly obeyed and observed and the Contraveners condignly censured and punished and to have special care that every Parish betwixt this and Pasche next procure unto themselves two at the least of the said Books of Common-Prayer for the use of the Parish The which to do We commit to you conjunctly and severally Our full Power by these Our Letters Patents delivering the same to be by you duly executed and endorsed again to be delivered to the Bearer Given under Our Signet at Edenborough 20 December in the Twelfth year of Our Reign 1636. Such was the form of Passing and Confirming the Scottish Liturgie never presented to that Kirk nor tendred to the Approbation of any General Assembly as in the Restitution of Episcopal Government and Introduction of the five Articles of Perth had been done before And this is that at which the Scottish Presbyters did seem to be most offended sufficiently displeased with any Liturgie at all but more in having such an one as either was so near the English or so different from it Which fault if any fault it were is rather to to be charged upon the Scottish than the English Prelates For when the way of introducing it was in agitation our Archbishop ever advised them as well in his Majesties presence as elsewhere To look carefully to it and to be sure to do nothing in it but what should be agreeable to the Laws of the Kingdom and not to fail of taking the Advice of the Lords of the Council and governing themselves according to it But as it seems those Bishops durst not trust their Clergy or venture the reception or refusal of it to the Vote of a General Assembly from which they could not promise themselves any good success So that the Case seems to be much like that of King Edward vi when the first Liturgie was Composed by some few of the Bishops and other Learned men not above thirteen in number especially thereto Authorised Or unto that of Queen Elizabeth when the second Liturgie of that King was fitted and corrected by her appointment Neither of which durst trust their Clergy but acted Sovereignly therein of their own Authority not venturing either of the said Books to their Convocations but only giving them the strength of an Act of Parliament and then the Point in issue will be briefly this viz. Whether the King consulting with a lesser part of the Bishops and Clergie and having their consent therein may conclude any thing in the way of a Reformation the residue and greatest part not advised withal nor yielding their consent in a formal way Now for my Answer that it may be built upon the surer grounds it is to be considered 1. Whether the Reformation be in corruption of Manners or abuses in Government Whether in matters Practical or in points of Doctrine 2. It in matters Practical Whether such Practice have the Character of Antiquity Vniversality and Consent imprinted on it or that it be the Practice
CYPRIANUS ANGLICUS OR THE HISTORY OF THE Life and Death OF The most Reverend and Renowned PRELATE WILLIAM By Divine Providence Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Primate of all ENGLAND and Metropolitan Chancellor of the Universities of Oxon. and Dublin and one of the Lords of the Privy Council to His late most SACRED MAJESTY King CHARLES the First Second MONARCH of Great Britain CONTAINING ALSO The Ecclesiastical History of the Three Kingdoms of ENGLAND SCOTLAND and IRELAND from His first rising till His Death By P. Heylyn D. D. and Chaplain to Charles the first and Charles the second Monarchs of Great Britain ECCLUS 44. VERS 1 3. 1. Let us now praise Famous Men and our Fathers that begat Vs. 3. Such as did bear Rule in their Kingdoms Men Renowned for their Power giving Counsel by their Vnderstanding and Declaring Prophesies LONDON Printed for A. Seile MDCLXVIII To the Honourable Sir IOHN ROBINSON Kt. and Baronet HIS MAJESTIES Lieutenant of the Tower of London SIR YOV have here before you the History of an Eminent Prelate and Patriot a Person who lived the honour and died a Martyr of the English Church and State for it was his sad Fate to be crusht betwixt Popery and Schism and having against both defended the Protestant Cause with his Pen he after chearfully proceeded to Seal that Faith with his Bloud Together with the Story of this Great Man you have likewise that of the Age he lived in especially so far as concerned the Church wherein you will find recorded many notable Agitations and Contrivances which it were pity should be lost in silence and pass away unregarded These Considerations towards a Gentleman of your worth Curiosity and loyalty are warrant enough to justifie me in this Dedication And yet I must not conceal that it belongs to you by another right that is to say the Care of recommending this VVork to the Publick was committed to a Gentleman who himself had presented it to your hand if God had not taken him away just upon the point of putting his purpose in execution So that it seems in me as well matter of Conscience as of Respect to deliver it wholly up to your Patronage and Protection since in exposing it to the world I do but perform the will of my dead Father and in addressing it to your self together with my own I also gratifie that of my deceased Friend The value of the VVork it self I do not pretend to judge of my duty and interest for the Author forbids it but for the Industry Integrity and good meaning of the Historian I dare become answerable And in truth I hope well of the rest without which I should not have made bold with Sir John Robinson's Name in the Front of it who being so nearly related both in bloud and affection to that Incomparable and Zealous Minister of God and his Prince cannot besides a Natural but upon an Honourable Impression concern himself in the glories or blemishes of this Character defective in nothing but that it could not be as ample as his worth And now having discharged my trust and duty as I could do no less so I have little more to add for my self but that I am SIR Your most humble and obedient Servant HENRY HEYLYN A Necessary INTRODUCTION To the following HISTORY BEFORE we come unto the History of this Famous Prelate it will not be amiss to see upon what Principles and Positions the Reformation of this Church did first proceed that so we may the better Judge of those Innovations which afterwards were thrust upon her and those Endeavours which were used in the latter times to bring her back again to her first Condition 1. Know therefore that King Henry viii having obtained of the Bishops and Clergie in their Convocation Anno 1530. to be acknowledged the Supream Head on Earth of the Church of England did about three years after in the 26 of his Reign confirm the said Supremacy to Himself his Heirs and Successors with all the Priviledges and Preheminencies thereunto belonging by Act of Parliament And having procured the said Bishops and Clergie in another of their Convocations held in the year 1532. to promise in verbo Sacerdotii not to assemble from thenceforth in any Convocation or Synodical Meeting but as they should be called by his Majesties Writ nor to make any Canons or Constitutions Synodal or Provincial without his Leave and Licence thereunto obtained nor finally to put the same in Execution till they were Ratified and Confirmed under the Great Seal of England Procured also an Act of Parliament to bind the Clergie to their promise Which Act called commonly The Act of the Submission of the Clergie doth bear this name in Poulton's Abridgment viz. That the Clergie in their Convocation should Enact no Constitutions without the Kings assent Anno 25. Henry viii c. 19. Which Grounds so laid he caused this Question to be debated in both Universities and all the Famous Monasteries of the Kingdom viz. An aliquid auâ—horitatis in hoc Regno Angliae Pontifici Romano de jure competat plusquam alii cuicumque Episcopo extero Which Question being concluded in the Negative and that Conclusion ratified and confirmed in the Convocation Anno 1534. there past an Act of Parliament about two years after Intituled An Act Extinguishing the Authority of the Bishops of Rome In which there was an Oath prescribed for abjuring the Popes Authority within this Realm The refusing whereof was made High-Treason Anno 28. H. viii c. 10. 2. But this Exclusion of the Pope as it did no way prejudice the Clergy in their power of making Canons Constitutions and other Synodical Acts but only brought them to a dependance upon the King for the better ordering of the same so neither did it create any diminution of the Power and Priviledges of the Arch-Bishops and Bishops in the free exercise of that Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction which anciently belonged to them For in the Act of Submission before-mentioned there passed a Clause that all former Constitutions Synodal or Provincial which were not contrary to the Word of God the Kings Prerogative Royal or the Laws and Statutes of this Realm should remain in force until they were reviewed and fitted for the use of the Church by 32 Commissioners to be nominated by the King for that end and purpose Which re-view being never made in the time of that King nor any thing done in it by K. Edw. vi though he had an Act of Parliament to the same effect the said Old Canons and Constitutions remained in force as before they were By means whereof all causes Testamentary Matrimonial and Suits for Tythes all matters of Incontinency and other notorious Crimes which gave publick Scandal all wilful absence from Divine Service Irreverence and other Misdemeanours in the Church not punishable by the Laws of the Land were still reserved unto the Ecclesiastical Courts Those Ancient Canons and Constitutions remaining also for the perpetual standing Rule
dies though his Munificence survive him It was then Midlent-Sunday and the Court-Sermon at Whitehall according to the ancient Custom in the after-noon At what time the sad News passing through London began to be rumored in the Court as Laud was going into the Pulpit to preach before the Lords of the Council the Officers of the Houshold and the rest of that great Concourse of all sorts of People which usually repaired thither at those Solemn Sermons Before he was come to the middle of it the certainty of the Kings death more generally known amongst them the confusion which he saw in the faces of all the Company his own griefs and the dolorous complaints made by the Duke of Buckingham occasioned him to leave the Pulpit and to bestow his pains and comforts where there was more need He did not think as I believe few wise men do that the carrying on of one particular Sermon was such a necessary part of Gods business as is not to be intermitted upon any occasion nor was this ever charged upon him amongst his crimes The sense of this great loss being somewhat abated he was requested by the Duke to draw up some Remembrances of the Life Reign and Government of the King Deceased which he accordingly performed and presented to him But they are but Remembrances or Memorials only like the first lines of a design or Picture which being polished and perfected by a skilâ—ul Workman might have presented us with the true and lively Pourtraiture of that gracious Prince But who will undertake to finish what Laud began I must therefore leave the deceased King to those Memorials and those Memorials to be found in his Breviate p. 5. But there was another Pourtraiture provided for that King before his Funeral His Body being brought from Theobalds unto Sommerset-house where a Royal and Magnificent Hearse was erected for him visited and resorted to by infinite multitudes of people for some Weeks together From Sommerset-house his Body was carried in great State on Saturday the seventh of May to St. Peters Church in Westminster where it was solemnly interred The Funeral Sermon preached by the Lord Keeper Williams and printed not long after by the name of Great Britains Solomon which afterwards administred the occasion of some discourse which otherwise might have been spared Thus is Iames dead and buried but the King survives his only Son Prince Charles being immediately proclaimed King of Great Britain France and Ireland first at the Court Gates by Sir Edward Zouch Knight Marshal most solemnly the next day at London and afterwards by degrees in all the Cities and Market Towns of the Kingdom At his first entrance on the Crown he found himself ingaged in a war with the K. of Spain the mightiest Monarch of the West for which he was to raise great Forces both by Sea and Land He was also at the Point of Marriage with the Daughter of France and some proportionable preparations must be made for that Nor was King Iames to be interred without a solemn and magnificent Funeral answerable in the full height to so great a Prince All which must needs exact great Sums of money and money was not to be had without the help of a Parliament which he therefore gave order to be called in the usual manner But in the middest of these many and great preparations he forgets not the great business of the Church He had observed the multitudinousness of his Fathers Chaplains and the disorder of their waitings which puts him on a Resolution of reducing them to a lesser number and limiting them to a more certain time of attendance than before they were He knew well also what an influence the Court had alwaies on the Country by consequence how much it did concern him in his future Government that his Officers and Servants should be rightly principled according to the Doctrine Government and Forms of Worship established in the Church of England And therefore that he might be served with Orthodox and Regular men Laud is commanded to prepare a Catalogue of the most eminent Divines and to distinguish them by the two Letters of O and P. according to their several perswasions and affections And that being done he is directed by the Duke and the Kings appointment to have recourse to the most learned Bishop Andrews to know of him what he thought fitting to be done in the Cause of Religion Especially in reference to the five Articles condemned not long since in the Synod at Dort and to report his answer with convenient speed A Convocation was of course to accompany the ensuing Parliament And it was fit not only that the Prelates should resolve before-hand what Points they meant to treat on when they were assembled but that his Majesty also might have time to consider of them These seasonable cares being thus passed over he hastens both his own marriage and his Fathers Funeral The first he sollemnized by Proxie in the Church of Nostre Dame in Paris on Sunday the first of May according to the Style of England The news whereof being brought to the Court on the Wednesday following was celebrated in the Streets of London the Liberties and out-parts of it with more than ordinary Expressions of Joy and Gladness The Proxie made to Claud. de Lorain Duke of Chevereux one of the younger Sons of the Duke of Guise from which House his Majesty derived himself by his great Grand-Mother Mary of Lorain Wife of Iames the Fifth The Funeral he attended in his own Person as the principal Mourner Which though it were contrary to the Custome of his Predecessors yet he chose rather to express his Piety in attending the dead Body of his Father to the Funeral Pile than to stand upon any such old niceties and points of State This was the third Funeral which he had attended as the principal Mourner which gave some occasion to presage that he would prove a man of sorrows and that his end would carry some proportion to those mournful beginnings The Intervall before the coming of his Queen he spent in looking to his Navy and drawing his Land Forces together for that Summers service But hearing that his Queen was advancing toward him he went to Canterbury and rested there on Trinity Sunday the twelfth of Iune That night he heard the news of her safe arrival at the Port of Dover whom he welcomed the next morning into England with the most chearful signs of a true aâ—fection From thence he brought her unto Canterbury and from thence by easie Stages to Gravesend where entring in their Royal Barge attended by infinite companies of all sorts of People and entertained by a continual peal of Ordnance all the way they passed he brought her safely and contentedly unto his Palace at Westminster The Lords and Ladies of the Court having presented to her the acknowledgement of their humble duties such Bishops as were about the Town as most of them were in regard of
against him certain Articles in the House of Peers in which he accused him of the like Crime in reference to his Actings in the Spanish business This made good sport amongst the Commons for a time but at last sâ—aring either the Weakness of Bristol's Charge or the insufficiency of his Proofs they resolved to follow their own way and to that end a large Impeachment was drawn up against him and presented to the Lords on the eighth of May managed by six of the ablest Lawyers in the House that is to say Glanvile Herbert Selden Pym Wansford and Sherland the Prologue made by Sir Dudly Diggs and the Epilogue by Sir Iohn Eliot The principal Branches of this Impeachment related to his engrossing of Offices his buying the Places of Lord Admiral and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports His not guarding the Seas His stay of a Ship called the St. Peter of Newhaven and of the East-India Fleet Lending his Majesties Ship called the Vantgard to the French King which the French King employed against Rochel His selling of Honours and Offices procuring Honours for his Kindred His diminishing the Revenues of the Crown and his applying Physick to King Iames in the time of his Sickness To every one of these there was returned in Writing a particular Answer by the Duke himself And then addressing his Discourse unto the Peers he humbly referred it to their Judgment how full of danger and prejudice it was to give too ready an ear and too easie a belief unto a Report or Testimony without Oath which are not of weight enough to condemn any With like humility he acknowledged how easie a thing it was for him in his younger years and unexperienced to fall into thousands of Errors in thâ—se ten years wherein he had the honour to serve so great and so open-hearted a Sovereign Master But still he hoped the fear of God his sincerity in the true Religion established in the Church of England though accompanied with many weaknesses and imperfections which he is not ashamed humbly and heartily to confess his carefulness not willingly to offend so good and gracious a Master and his love and duty to his Country had restrained and preserved him from running into any hainous misdemeanours and crimes Which said and having craved the benefit of two several Pardons the one granted in the last Parliament of King Iames the other at the Coronation of King Charles he added That he could not chuse but hope so much in their Lordships Justice and Honour that they would acquit him of and from those Misdemeanours Offences Misprisions and Crimes wherewith he had bee charged and for his own part he both hoped and would daily pray That for the future he might so watch over all his Actions both publick and private as not to give cause of just offence to any person Of these Proceedings his Majesty was exceeding sensible He saw himself wounded through the Dukes sides That his Fathers Favours and his own were the greatest Crimes of which the Duke had been impeached and That their Regal Authority in bestowing Offices and Honours on whom they pleased was not only questioned but controlled With which disturbances being very much perplex'd and troubled he receives a Letter written to him from an unknown Person in which he first met with a Recital of the several Interests and Affections which were united in this Prosecution against the Duke and after that this Application to himself and his own Concernments viz. These men saith the Writer of the Letter either cannot or will not remember That never any noble man in favour with his Sovereign was questioned in Parliament except by the King himself in case of Treason or unless it were in the nonage and tumultuary times of Richard the Second Henry vi or Edward vi which hapned to the destruction both of King and Kingdom And that not to exceed our own and Fathers Memory in King Henry viii his time Wolseys exorbitant Power and Pride and Cromwels contempt of the Nobility and the Laws were not yet permitted to be discussed in Parliament though they were most odious and grievous to all the Kingdom And that Leicesters undeserved Favour and Faults Hattons insufficiency and Releighs Insolencies far exceed what yet hath been objected against the Duke yet no Lawyer durst abet nor any man else begin any Invectives against them in Parliament And then he adds some other Passages intervening That it behoves his Majesty to uphold the Duke against them who if he be but discourted it will be the Corner stone on which the demolishing of his Monarchy will be builded For if they prevail with this they have hatched a thousand other Demands to pull the Feathers of the Royalty they will appoint him Counsellors Servants Alliances Limits of his Expences Accounts of his Revenue chiefly if they can as they mainly desire they will now dazle him in the beginning of his Reign How true a Prophet this man proved the event hath shewed and the King saw it well enough and therefore since he could not divert them from that pursuit on the 15th of Iune he dissolved the Parliament I have been the more punctual and particular in relating these Proceedings of the Commons against the Duke by reason of that Influence which Laud either had or is reported to have had in managing his Cause against them For first it is affirmed by the Publisher of this Bishops Breviate That the Copy of the Kings Speech made in behalf of the Duke March 29. was of Lauds enditing and That the Original Copy thereof under his own hand was given in evidence against him at the time of Trial. Secondly That he likewise penned the Kings Speech to the House of Peers touching the Duke and the Commitment of the Earl of Arundel May the 11th In which he spake concerning the preservation of the Honour of Noblemen against the vile and detestable Calumnies of those of the Lower House by whom the Duke had been accused as before was said Most grievous Crimes indeed if they had been true for a Subject to assist his Prince and a Servant to be aiding to his Master in penning a short Speech or two when either the pressure of Affairs or perplexities of minde might require it of him But for the truth of this there is no proof offered but that the Copies of both Speeches the Original Copies as he calls them were found in the Archbishops Study as probably they might have been in the Studies of many other men if they had been searched For who can rationally suppose That his Majesty who was the Master of such a pure and elegant Style as he declared himself to be in his Discourse with Henderson at Newcastle and his Divine Essays made in Prison when he could have no other helps but what he found in himself should stand in need of the Expressions of another man in matters of so great concernment Or if it be to be
Canonry in Christ-Church to be annexed for ever to the Orators place whose yearly Pension till that time was but twenty Nobles Injoyed first by Dr. William Strode admitted thereunto on the first of Iuly Anno 1638. and after his decease by Dr. Henry Hammond Anno 1644. Such were the benefits which the University received from him in this present year And that he might both do himself and the University some honour in the eye of the Kingdom he invites the King the Queen the Prince Elector and his Brother to an Academical entertainment on the twenty ninth day of August then next following being the Anniversary day on which the Presidentship of St. Iohns Colledge was adjudged to him by King Iames. The time being come and the University put into a posture for that Royal visit their Majesties were first received with an eloquent Speech as he passed by the house being directly in his way betwixt Woodstock and Christ-Church not without great honour to the Colledge that the Lord Archbishop the Lord Treasurer the Chancellor the Vice-Chancellor and one of the Proctors should be at that time of the same foundation At Christ-Church his Majesty was entertained with another Oration by Strode the University Oratour the University presenting his Majesty with a fair and costly pair of Gloves as their custome was the Queen with a fair English Bible the Prince Elector with Hookers Books of Ecclesiastical Politie his Brother Rupert with Caesars Commentaries in English illustrated by the learned Explanations and Discourses of Sir Clement Edmonds His Majesty was lodged in Christ-Church in the great Hall whereof one of the goodliest in the World he was entertained together with the Queen the two Princes and the rest of the Court with an English Comedy but such as had more of the Philosopher than the Poet in it called Passions Calmed or the settling of the Floating Islands On the morrow morning being Tuesday he began with a Sermon preacht before him in that Cathedral on these words of St. Luke viz. Blessed is the King that cometh in the name of the Lord peace in heaven and glory in the highest Luk. 19.38 The Sermon being ended the Archbishop as Chancellor of the University calls a Convocation in which he admits the Prince Elector his Brother Prince Rupert and many of the chief Nobility to the degree of Masters of Art and that being done attends the King and Queen to St. Iohns Colledge Where in the new Gallery of his own building he entertains the King and Queen the two Princes with all the Lords and Ladies of the Court at a stately and magnificent Dinner the King and Queen sitting at one Table at the South end of the Room the two Princes with the Lords and Ladies at a long Table reaching almost from one end to the other at which all the Gallantry and beauties of the Kingdom seemed to meet Nor did he make Provision only for those two Tables but every Office in the Court had their several diets disposed of in convenient places for their reception with great variety of Achates not only sufficient for contentment but for admiration After dinner he entertains his principal Guests with a pleasant Comedy presented in the publick Hall and that being done attends them back again to Christ-Church where they were feasted after Supper with another Comedy called The Royal Slave the Enterludes represented with as much variety of Scenes and motions as the great wit of Inigo Iones Surveyor General of his Majesties Works and excellently well skilled in setting out a Court Masque to the best advantage could extend unto It was the day of St. Felix as himself observeth and all things went happily On Wednesday the next morning the Court removed his Majesty going that same night to Winchester and the Archbishop the same day entertaining all the Heads of Houses at a solemn Feast order being given at his departure that the three Comedies should be acted again for the content and satisfaction of the University in the same manner as before but only with the Alteration of the Prologues and Epilogues But to return unto the publick On the same day in which the new Statutes were received at Oxon. he procured a Supplement to be added to the old Statutes of Cathedral and Collegiate Churches touching the letting of their Lands Some Informations had been given that the Deans and Prebends of those Churches had enricht themselves their Wives and Children by taking great Fines for turning leases of twenty one years into leases for lives leaving their Successors destitute of that growing means which otherwise might come in to help them This was the outside of the business but the chief motive to it was that the Gentry and Yeomanry and some of the Nobility also holding Lands of those Churches might have a greater respect to the Church and Church-men when they must depend upon them from time to time for renewing of their said Estates at the end of every ten or twelve years at the most For though it be a like lawful by the Law of the Land 13 Eliz. c. 20. to make Leases of three lives or one and twenty years at the pleasure of the Dean and Chapter yet the difference is so great between them that once a Tenant to my knowledge after a Lease for three lives had continued 29 years in being chose rather to give a Fine for the change of one life than to take a new Lease of 21 years without paying any thing All which his Majesty taking into his Princely consideration he caused Letters under his Royal Signature to be sent to all the Deans and Chapters of this Kingdom respectively Calling and commanding them upon pain of his utmost displeasure that they presumed not to let any Lease belonging to their Church into lives which was not in lives already and further that when any fair opportunity was offered if any such be they fail not to reduce such as are in lives into years requiring further that those his Majesties said Letters should be exemplified in the Register-books of the said Churches and preâ—erved in the Registries of the Bishops of their several Diocess to the end that the said Bishop might take notice of their doing therein and give his Majesty and his Successors notice thereof if any presumed to disobey And in regard that some of the Deans of the said Cathedrals were a Corporation of themselves and held their Lands distinct from the rest of their Chapters a clause was added to those Letters to preserve those Lands for the benefit of their Successors as formerly in his Majesties Instructions for ordering and disposing the Lands of Bishops on the like occasions His Majesty therefore first declares That he had taken order by his late Instructions that no Bishop should let any Lease after they had been named to a better Bishoprick but had not therein named the Deans as he therein intended And therefore secondly that no Dean should presume from thenceforth
those who adhered unto him to fly the Country but intercepted his Revenues seazed on all his Forts and Castles and put themselves into a Posture of open War And that they might be able to manage it with the greater credit they called home some of their Commanders out of Germany and some which served under the Pay of the States General so far prevailing with those States as to continue such Commanders in their Pay and Places as long as they remained in the Service of the Scottish Covenanters A favour which his Majesty could not get at their hands nor had he so much reason to expect it as the others had iâ— considered rightly It had been once their own case and they conceived they had good reason to maintain it in others It may deservedly be a matter of no small amazement that this poor and unprovided Nation should dare to put such baffles and affronts upon their Lawful King the King being backt by the united Forces of England and Ireland obeyed at home and rendred formidable unto all his Neighbours by a puissant Navy they must have some assurances more than ordinary which might enflame them to this height and what they were it may not be amiss to enquire into First then they had the King for their natural Country-man born in that Air preserving a good affection for them to the very laâ—t and who by giving them the Title of his Ancient and Native Kingdom as he did most commonly gave them some reason to believe that he valued them above the English They had in the next place such a strong Party of Scots about him that he could neither stir or speak scarce so much as think but they were made acquainted with it In the Bed-Chamber they had an equal number of Gentlemen and seven Grooms for one in the Presence-Chamber more than an equal number amongst the Gentlemen Ushers Quarter-Waiters c. In the Privy-Chamber besides the Carvers and Cup-bearers such disproportion of the Gentlemen belonging to it that once at a full Table of Waiters each of them having a Servant or two to attend upon him I and my man were the only English in all the Company By which the King was so obsâ—rved and betrayed withal that as far as they could find his meaning by Words by Signs and Circumstances or the silent language of a shrug it was posted presently into Scotland some of his Bed-Chamber being grown so bold and saucy that they used to Ransack his Pockets when he was in bed to transcribe such Letters as they found and send the Copies to their Countrymen in the way of intelligence A thing so well known about the Court that the Archbishop of Canterbury in one of his Letters gave him this memento that he should not trust his Pockets with it For Offices of trust and credit they wâ—re as well accomodated as with those of service Hamilton Master of the Horse who stocked the Stables with that People The Earl of Morton Captain of his Majesties Guard The Earl of Ancram Keeper of the Privy Purse The Duke of Lenox Warden of the Cinque Ports and Constable of Dover Castle Balfore Lieutenant of the Tower the Fortress of most power and command in England And Wemmys the Master Gunner of his Majesties Navy who had the issuing of the Stores and Ammunition designed unto it Look on them in the Church and we shall find so many of that Nation beneficed and preferred in all parts of this Country that their Ecclesiastical Revenues could not but amount to more then all the yearly Rents of the Kirk of Scotland and of all these scarce one in ten who did not cordially espouse and promote their Cause amongst the People They had beside no less assurance of the English Puritans than they had of their own those in Court of which there was no very small number being headed by the Earl of Holland those in the Country by his Brother the Earl of Warwick The fâ—rst being aptly called in a Letter of the Lord Conways to the Lord Archbishop The spiritual and invisible head the other The visible and temporal head of the Puritan Faction And which was more than all the rest they had the Marquiss of Hamilton for their Lord and Patron of so great power about the King such Authority in the Court of England such a powerful influence on the Council of Scotland and such a general Command over all that Nation that his pleasure amongst them past for Law and his words for Oracles all matters of Grace and Favour ascribed to him matters of harshness or distate to the King or Canterbury To speak the matter in a word he was grown King of Scots in Fact though not in Title His Majesty being looked on by them as a Cypher only in the Arithmetick of State But notwithstanding their confidence in all these Items taking in the Imprimis too they might have reckoned without their Host in the Summa Tetalis the English Nation being generally disaffected to them and passionately affecting the Kings quarrel against them The sense and apprehension of so many indignities prevailed upon the King at last to unsheath the Sword more justly in it self and more justifiably in the sight of others the Rebels having rejected all 〈◊〉 oâ—â—ers of Grace and Favour and growing the more insolent by his Condescensions So that resolved or rather forced upon the War he must bethink himself of means to go thorow with it To which end Burrows the Principal King of Arms is commanded to search into the Records of the Tower and to return an Extract of what he found relating to the War of Scotland which he presented to the Archbishop in the end of December to this effect viz. 1. That such Lords and others as had Lands and Livings upon the Borders were commanded to reside there with their Retinue and those that had Castles there were enjoined to Fortifie them 2. That the Lords of the Kingdom were Summoned by Writ to attend the Kings Army with Horse and Armour at a certain time and place according to their Service due to the King or repair to the Exchequer before that day and make Fine for their Service As also were all Widows Dowagers of such Lords as were deceased and so were all Bishops and Ecclesiastical Persons 3. That Proclamations were likewise made by Sheriffs in every County That all men holding of the King by Knights-Service or Sergeancy should come to the Kings Army or make Fines as aforesaid with a strict command That none should conceal their Service under a great Penalty 4. As also That all men having 40 l. Land per Annum should come to the Kings Army with Horse and Armour of which if any failed to come or to make Fine their Lands Tenements Goods and Chattels were distrained by the Sheriâ—f upon Summons out of the Exchequer 5. That Commissions should be issued out for Levying of Men in every County and bringing them to the Kings
as forward in it as any other that their Contributions mounted higher than was expected The Benevolence of the Diocess of Norwich only aâ—ounting to 2016 l. 16 s. 5 d. The Archdâ—acorry of Winchester only to the sum of 1305 l. 5 s. 8 d. And though we may not conclude of all the rest by the greatness of thâ—se yet may it be very safely said that they did all exceeding bountifully in their several proportions with reference to the extent of their Diocesses and the ability of their Estates Nor were the Judges of the several Benches of the Courts at Westminster and the great Officers under them Protonotaries Secondaries and the like deficient in expressing their good aâ—â—ections to this general cause in which the safety of the Realm was as much concerned as his Majesties honour And for the Doctors of the Laws Chancellors Commissaries Officials and other Officers belonging to the Ecclesiastical Courts they were spurred on to follow the example of the Secular Judges as having a more particular concernment in it by a Letter sent from the Archbishop to the Dean of the Arches on February 11. and by him communicated to the rest By which Free-will offerings on the one side some commanded duties on the other and the well-husbanding of his Majesties Revenue by the Lord Treasurer Iuxon he was put into such a good condition that he was able both to raise and maintain an Army with no charge to the Common Subject but only a little Coat and Conduct money at their first setting out These preparations were sufficient to give notice of a War approaching without any further denouncing of it by a publick Herald and yet there was another accident which seemed as much to fore-signifie it as those preparations Mary de Medices the Widow of King Henry iâ— of France and Mother to the Queens of England and Spain arrived at Harwich on October 19. and on the last of the same was with great State conducted through the Streets of London to his Majesties Palace of St. Iames. A Lady which for many years had not lived out of the smell of Powder and a guard of Muskets at her door embroyled in wars and troubles when she lived in France and drew them after her into Flanders where they have ever since continued So that most men were able to presage a Tempest as Mariâ—eâ—s by the appearing of some Fish or the flying of some Birds about their ships can foresee a storm His Majesty had took great care to prevent her comming knowing â—ull well how chargeable a guest she would prove to him and how unwelcome to the Subject To which end â—eswel was commanded to use all his wits for perswading her to stay in Holland whither she had retired from Flanders in the year precedent But she was wedded to her will and possibly had received such invitations from her Daughter here that nothing but everlasting foul weather at Sea and a perpetual cross-wind could have kept her there All things provided for the War his Majesty thought sit to satisfie his good Subjects of both Kingdoms not only of the Justice which appeared in this Action but in the unavoydable necessity which enforced him to it To which end he acquaints them by his Proclamation of the 20 of February How traiterously some of the Scottish Nation had practiced to pervert his Loyal Subjects of this Realm by scattering abroad their Libellous and Seditious Pamphlets mingling themselves at their publick meetings and reproaching both his Person and Government That he had never any intention to alter their Religion or Laws but had condescended unto more for defence thereof than they had reason to expect That they had rejected the Band and Covenant which themselves had prest upon the people because it was commended to them by his Authority and having made a Covenant against God and him and made such Hostile preparations as if he were their sworn Enemy and not their King That many of them were men of broken Fortunes who because they could not well be worse hoped by engaging in this War to make themselves better That they had assumed unto themselves the power of the Press one of the chief markes of the Regal Authority prohibiting to Print what he commanded and commanding to Print what he prohibited and dismiâ—â—ng the Printer whom he had established in that Kingdom That they had raised Arms blockt up and besieged his Castles laid Impositions and Taxes upon his people threatned such as continued under Loyalty with force and violence That they had contemned the Authority of the Council Table and set up Tables of their own from which they send their Edâ—cts throughout all parts of the Kingdom contrary to the Laws therein established pretending in the mean time that the Laws were violated by himself That the question was not now whether the Service-Book should be received or not or whether Episcopacy should continue or not but whether he were King or not That many of them had denied the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance for which some of them had been committed as inconsistent and incompatible with their holy Covenant That being brought under a necessity of taking Arms he had been traduced in some of their writings for committing the Arms he had then raised into the hands of professed Papists a thing not only dishonourable to himself and the said noble persons but false and odious in it self That some of power in the Hierarchy had been defamed for being the cause of his taking Arms to invade that Kingdom who on the contrary had been only Counsellors of peace and the chief perswaders as much as in them lay of the undeserved moderation wherewith he had hitherto proceeded toward so great Offenders That he had no intent by commending the Service-Book unto them to innovate any thing at all in their Religion but only to create a conformity between the Churches of both Kingdoms and not to infringe any of their Liberties which were according to the Laws That therefore he required all his loving Subjects not to receive any more of the said seditious Pamphlets but to deliver such of them as they had received into the hands of the next Justice of the Peace by him to be sent to one of his Majesties principal Secretaries And finally That this his Proclamation and Declaration be read in time of Divine Service in every Church within the Kingdom that all his People to the meanest might see the notorious carriages of these men and likewise the Justice and Mercy of all his proceedings And now his Majesty is for Action beginning his Journey towards the North March 27. being the Anniversary day of his Inauguration His Army was advanced before the best for quality of the Persons compleatness of Arms number of serviceable Horse and necessary Provision of all sorts that ever waited on a King of England to a War with Scotland Most of the Nobility attended on him in their Persons and such as were to be
without daily Wages they had each of them their 4 s. per diem well and truly paid and were besides invested in several Lectures in and about the City of London and the best Benefices some of them three or four for failing which could be found in all the Kingdom His Majesty looks on this as a new Provocation a strange and unparallell'd Incroachment on his Royal Prerogative to which alone the calling of such Assemblies did belong by the Laws of the Realm He sees withal the dangerous ends for which it was called of what Ingredients for the most part the whole Assembly was composed what influence the prevailing party in both Houses was to have upon it and the sad consequents which in all probability were to be expected from it to the Church and State And thereupon by his Proclamation of Iune 22. being just ten days after the date of the Ordinance by which the Assembly was indicted He inhibits all and every Person named in that pretended Ordinance under several pains from assembling together for the end and purpose therein set down declaring the Assembly to be illegal and that the Acts thereof ought not to be received by any of his good Subjects as binding them or of any Authority with them Which Prohibition notwithstanding most of the Members authorised by that Ordinance assembled in the Abby of Westminster on the first of Iuly in contempt of his Majesty and the Laws But what they did or whether they did any thing or not more than their taking of the Covenant and issuing a new Form of Worship by the name of a Directory comes not within the compass of my Observation Such were his Majesties pious Cares for preserving the Peace of the Church the Purity of Religion and the possessions of his Clergy in the midst whereof he kept his eye on the course of that War which â—itherto he had prosecuted with such good success with hopes of better fortune for the time to come For having triumphantly brought the Queen into Oxford in the beginning of the Spring with some Supplies of Men and a considerable Stock of Powder Arms and Ammunition which she bought in Holland he finds himself in a condition to take the Field and in this Summer becomes Master of the North and West some few places only being excepted The Earl of Newcâ—sâ—le with his Northern Army had cleared all parts beyond Trent but the Town of Hull of the Enemies Forces And with his own Army under the Command of Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice two of the younger Sons of his Sister Elizabeth Queen of â—â—hemia â—e reduced the Cities of Bristol and Exeter the Port-Town of Weymouth and all the Towns of any importance in the Western Parts except Poole Lime and Plymouth So that he was in a manner the absolute Commander of the Counties of Wilts Dorset Sommerset Devon and Cornwal And though the Towns of Plymouth Lime and Poole still held out against him yet were they so bridled by his neighbouring Garrisons that they were not able to create him any great disturbance The noise of which successes was so loud at London that most of the leading men in both Houses of Parliament prepared for quitting of the Kingdom and had undoubtedly so done if the King had followed his good Fortunes and advanced toward London But unhappily diverting upon 〈◊〉 he lay so long there without doing any thing to the purpose that the Earl of Essex came time enough to raise the Siege and relieve the Town though he made not haste enough to recover 〈◊〉 without blows For besides some Skirmishes on the by which â—â—ll out to his loss the King with the whole Body of his Army overtook him at Newbury where after a sharp Fight with the loss of the Earl of Carnarvan the Earl of Sunderland and the Lord Viscount Faulkland on his Majesties side he had the worst of the day and had much a do to save his Cannon and march off orderly from the place followed so hotly the next morning that his own Horse which were in the Rere were fain to make their way over a great part of his â—ooâ— to preserve themselves But being returned to Oxford with Success and Honour he Summons the Lords and Commons of Parliament to attend there on Ianuary 22. then next following and they came accordingly And for their better welcome he advances Prince Rupert to the Titles of Earl of Holderness and Duke of Cumberland and creates Iames his Second Son born October 13. Anno 1633. Duke of York by which name he had been appointed to be called at the time of his Birth that they might Sit and Vote amongst them But being come they neither would take upon themselves the name of a Parliament nor acted much in order to his Majesties Designs but stood so much upon their terms and made so many unhandsom Motions to him upon all occasions that he had more reason to call them A Mongrel Parliament in one of his Letters to the Queen than they were willing to allow of Scarce were they settled in their several and respective Houses when they were entertained with a hot Alarm made by the coming in of the Scots with a puissant Army the greatest and best accommodated with all sorts of Arms and Ammunition that ever was mustered by that Nation since it had a being His Majesties wonderful Successes in the North and West strook such a terrour in the prevailing Party of both Houses that they were forced to cast themselves upon the Scots for Support and Succour dispatching Armine and some other of their active Members to negotiate a new Confederacy with them The Scots had thrived so wâ—ll by the former Service as made them not unwilling to come under the pay of such bountiful Masters and by the Plunder of so many of the Northern Counties had made themselves Masters of a greater stock of Arms and Horses than that Kingdom formerly could pretend to in its greatest Glories But knowing well in what necessity their dear Brethren in England stood of their assistance they were resolved to make Hay while the Sun shined and husband that necessity to their best advantage The English must first enter into Covenant with them for conforming of this Church with that They must be flattered with the hopes of dividing the Bishops Lands amongst them that they might plant themselves in some of the fairest Houses and best Lands of this Kingdom So great a stroke is to be given them in the Government of all Affairs that the Houses could act nothing in order to the present War no not so much as to hold a Treaty with the King without the consent of their Commissioners Some of their Ministers Gillespie Henderson c. with as many of their Ruling Elders to â—it in the Assembly of Divines at Westminster that nothing might be acted which concerned Religion but by their Advice One hundred thousand pounds for Advance-money to put them into heart and
the neighbouring parts of Christendom And the coldness of this State shall suffer in all places as the betrayer of that Religion elsewhere which it professeth and honoureth at home which will be an imputation never to be washed off And God forbid this State should suffer under it Neither may you forget rightly to inform the People committed to your charge that this War which now grows full of danger was not entred upon rashly and without advice but you are to acquaint them that all former Treaties by a peaceable way were in the latter end of our dear Father of ever blessed memory dissolved as fruitless and unfit to be longer held on foot And this by the Counsel of both Houses of Parliament then sitting so those two great and honourable Bodies of Peers and People represented in Parliament led on this Counsel and course to a War with Spain To effect this they desired our aide and assistance and used us to work our said dear Father to entertain this course This upon their Perswasions and Promises of all Assistance and Supply we readily undertook and effected and cannot now be left in that Business but with the Sin and Shame of all men Sin because Aid and Supply for the Defence of the Kingdom and the like Affairs of State especially such as are advised and assumed by Parliamentary Council are due to the King from his People by all Law both of God and Men And shame if they forsake the King while he pursues their own Council just and honourable and which could not under God but have been as succesful if it had been followed and supplied in time as we desired and laboured for One thing there is which proves a great hinderance of this State and not continued among the People without great offence against God detriment both to Church and State and our great disservice in this and all other Business It is breach of Unity which is grown too great and common amongst all sorts of men The danger of this goes far for in all States it hath made way for Enemies to enter We have by all means endeavoured Vnion and require of you to Preach it and Charity the Mother of it frequently in the ears of the People We know their Loyal hearts and therefore wonder the more what should cause destracted Affections If you call upon them which is your duty we doubt not but that God will bless them with that Love to himself to his Church and their own Preservation which alone will be able to bind up the scatterings of divided Affections into Strength To this end you are to lay before them what Miseries Home-divisions have brought upon this and many other Kingdoms and to exhort all men to embrace it in time The Danger it self besides all other Christian and Prudent Motives is of force enough where it is duly considered to make men joyn in all amity against a common Enemy a great and growing Enemy And to do it in time before any secret and cunning working of his may use one part in a division to weaken the other And in the last place but first and last and all times to be insisted on you are to call upon God your selves and to incite the People to joyn with you in humble and hearty Prayers unto God That he would be pleased now after long affliction of his dear People and Children to look in mercy both upon them and us and in particular for the Safety of the King of Denmark and that Army which is left him That God would bless and prosper him against his and our Enemies Thus you are to strengthen the hearts and hopes of our Loyal Subjects and People in and upon God And whereas the greatest confidence men have in God ariseth not only from his Promises but from their experience likewise of his Goodness you must not fail often to recal to the memory of the People with thankfulness the late great Experience we have had of his Goodness towards us For the three great and usual Iudgments which he darts down upon disobedient and unthankful People are Pestilence Famine and the Sword The Pestilence did never rage more in this Kingdom than of late and God was graciously pleased in mercy to hear the Prayers which were made unto him and the ceasing of the Iudgement was little less than a Miracle The Famine threatned us this present year and it must have followed had God rained down his Anger a little longer upon the Fruits of the Earth But upon our Prayers he staied that Iudgment and sent us a blessed Season and a most plentiful Harvest The Sword is the thing which we are now to look to and you must call the People to their Prayers again against that Enemy That God will be pleased to send the like deliverance from this Iudgment also That in the same Mercy he will vouchsafe to strengthen the hands of his People That he will sharpen their Sword but dull and turn the edge of that which is in our Enemies hands that so while some Fight others may Pray for the Blessing And you are to be careful that you fail not to direct and hearten our Loving People in this and all other necessary Services both of God his Church and Vs That we may have the comfort of our Peoples Service the State Safety the Church Religion and the People the enjoying of all such Blessings as follow these And we end with doubling this Care upon you and all under you in their several Places Given at our Palace at Westminster in the Second year of our Reign September 21. 1626. Such were the Instructions issued by his Majesties Command in the present exigent The dexterous performance of which Service as it raised Laud higher in his Majesties good Opinion of him than before he was so was it recompenced with a Place of greater neerness to him than before he had For on that very day which gives date to the said Instructions the most Learned and Reverend Bishop Andrews Bishop of Winton and Dean of his Majesties Chappel-Royal departed this Life at his Episcopal House in Southwark whose Funerals were solemnized in St. Saviours Church on the eleventh day of November following Buckeridge then Bishop of Rochester bestowing his last duty on him in a Funeral Sermon A man he was of such extraordinary Abilities that I shall rather chuse to express his Character by the Pen of others than my own Thus then says one of our late Historians This year we lost the stupendiously profound Prelate Doctor Andrews Bishop of Winchester an excellent Disputant in the Oriental Tongues surpassing knowing so studiously devoted to the Doctrine of the Ancient Fathers as his extant Works breath nothing but their Faith nor can we now read the Fathers more than we should have done in his very Aspect Gesture and Actions so venerable in his Presence so grave in his Motions so pious in his Conversation so primitive in all Another
it was presented to his Majesty together with the Bill of Subsidies on the seventeenth of Iune At the receiving thereof his Majesty was pleased to use these words That on his Answer to their Petition of Right he expected no such Declaration from them which containeth divers points of state touching the Church and Common-wealth that he conceived they did believe he understood them better than themselves But that since the reading thereof he perceived they understood those things less than he imagined and that notwithstanding he would take them into such consideration as they deserved Nor was it long after his Majesties receiving of this Remonstrance but that they were drawing up another to take away his right to Tonnage and Poundage Which coming to his Majesties knowledge he resolved to be beforehand with them and dissolve the Parliament which was done accordingly Iune 26. At the dissolving whereof his Majesty gave this further censure on the said Remonstrance viz. That the acceptableness thereof unto him every man might judge and that he would not call in question the merit of it because he was sure no wise man could justifie it And possibly it had escaped without any further censure if the Commons for the ostentation of their Zeal and Piety had not caused it to be Printed and dispersed abroad with which his Majesty being acquainted he commanded it to be called in by Proclamation as tending to the defamation of his Person and Government But no sooner was the Parliament ended but he gave order unto Laud whom he â—ound to be much concerned in it to return an answer thereunto which he who knew no better Sacrifice than obedience did very chearfully perform which Answer for so much as concerns Religion the Preamble and Conclusion being laid aside we shall here subjoyn And first saith he that Remonstrance begins at Religion and fears of innovation in it Innovation by Popery but we would have our Subjects of all sorts to call to mind what difficulties and dangers we endured not many years since for Religions sake That we are the same still and our holy Religion is as pretious to us as it is or can be to any of them and we will no more admit innovation therein than they that think they have done well in fearing it so much It is true that all effects expected have not followed upon the Petitions delivered at Oxon but we are in least fault for that for supply being not afforded us disenabled us to execute all that was desired and caused the stay of those legal proceedings which have helped to swell up this Remonstrance Yet let all the Counties of England be examined and London with the Suburbs with them neither is there such a noted increase of Papists nor such cause of fear as is made nor hath any amounted to such an odious tolerating as is charged upon it nor near any such For that Commission so much complained of both the matter and intent of it are utterly mistaken for it doth not dispence with any penalty or any course to be taken with any Papists for the exercise of their Religion no nor with the Pecuniary Mulets or non-conformity to ours it was advised for the encrease of our profits and the returning of that into our Purse which abuse or connivency of inferiour Ministers might perhaps divert another way if that or any other shall be abused in the execution we will be ready to punish upon any just complaint The next fear is the dayly growth and spreading of the Arminian Faction called a cunning way to bring in Popery but we hold this Charge as great a wrong to our Self and Government as the former For our People must not be taught by a Parliament Remonstrance or any other way that we are so ignorant of Truth or so careless of the profession of it that any opinion or faction or whatever it be called should thrust it self so far and so fast into our Kingdom without our knowledge of it this is a meer dream of them that wake and would make our loyal and loving People think we sleep the while In this Charge there is great wrong done to two eminent Prelates that attend our Person for they are accused without producing any the least shew or shadow of Proof against them and should they or any other attempt Innovation of Religion either by that open or any cunning way we should quickly take other Order with them and not stay for your Remonstrance To keep on this our people are made believe That there is a restraint of Books Orthodoxal but we are sure since the late Parliament began some whom the Remonstrance calls Orthodox have assumed unto themselves an unsufferable Liberty in Printing Our Proclamation commanded a Restraint on both sides till the Passions of men might subside and calm and had this been obeyed as it ought we had not now been tossed in this Tempest And for the distressing and discountenancing of Good Preachers we know there is none if they be as they are called Good But our People shall never want that Spiritual Comfort which is due unto them and for the Preferments which we bestow we have so made it our great Care to give them as Rewards of Desert and Pains but as the Preferments are ours so will we be judge of the Desert Our self and not be taught by a Remonstrance For Ireland we think in case of Religion it is not worse than Queen Elizabeth left it and for other Affairs it is as good as we found it nay perhaps better and we take it as a great disparagement to our Government that it should be voiced That new Monasteries Nunneries and other Superstitious Houses are Erected and Replenished in Dublin and other great Towns of that our Kingdom For we assure our self our Deputy and Council there will not suffer God and our Government so to be dishonoured but we should have some account of it from them and we may not endure to have our good People thus misled with Shews There is likewise somewhat considerable in the time when these Practises to undermine true Religion in our Kingdoms are set on foot The Remonstrance tells us it is now when Religion is opposed by open force in all Parts But we must tell our People There is no undermining Practice at home against it if they practice not against it that seem most to labour for it for while Religion seems to be contended for in such a Factious way which cannot be Gods way the heat of that doth often melt away the Purity which it labours earnestly but perhaps not wisely to preserve And for Gods Iudgments which we and our People have felt and have cause to fear we shall prevent them best by a true Religious Remonstrance of the amendment of our Lives c. This and the rest of the Answer to the said Remonstrance is all what I find acted by Laud in reference to the present Parliament For That he should
against the like Instructions in the time of King Iames and the late Declaration published by the King reigning For what less could be aimed at in them than suppressing the Divine Ordinance of Preaching or at the least a dreadful diminution of the number of Sermons And what could follow thereupon but negligence in the Priests ignorance in the People Popery and Superstition in the mean time gaining ground on both Spending the afternoons in teaching the Catechism was a work fitter for a Pedagogue than a preaching Minister who rather were ordained to provide strong meats for men than milk for babes and yet such was the strictness of the said Instructions in looking to the observance of the late Declaration that they were not suffered to set strong meats before the people though men of ripe years and somewhat more than children in their understandings Preaching must be restrained hereafter to Gods Will revealed to Faith in Christ and Moral duties toward God and men but as for his secret Will and Purpose in the unfathomable depths of Predestination those must be kept sealed up under lock and key and none but the Arminians have the opening of them And yet the grief had been the less if Lecturers had been left to their former liberty and not tied up to Gown and Surplice or fettered with Parochial cures and consequently with Subscriptions and Canonical Oaths badges of Antichrist and professed enemies to the pure Freedom of the Gospel Where might a man repair with comfort to hear Gods Word preached in truth and simplicity the Sacraments administred in their original nakedness to hear Christ speaking in his Prophets and the Prophets speaking to the People if this world went on But notwithstanding these secret Murmurs on the one side and the open Clamours of the other Laud was resolved to do his duty who summoning all the Ministers and Lecturers about the City of London to appear before him made a solemn Speech in which he pressed the necessity of his Majesties said Instructions for the good of the Church and of their chearful obedience to them He directed Letters also to every Archdeacon in his Diocess requiring them to see them published to all the Clergy and to give him an exact account at the end of their Visitations how they were observed especially insisting on the third Instruction For keeping the Kings Declaration that so the differences and disputes in those prohibited points might be laid aside The like care taken also by the rest of the Bishops but slackning by degrees when the heat was over and possibly in short time after they had not been looked into at all if Abbot had continued longer in the See of Canterbury or that his Majesty had not enjoyned the Bishops to give him an exact account of their proceedings in the said particulars not once for all but Annually once in every year on the second of Ianuary Which care being taken for the peace and happiness of the Church of England we will lay hold upon this opportunity for crossing over into Ireland and taking a short view of the state of Religion in that Country which from henceforth shall be lookt into more than hath been formerly Concerning which we are to know that when the Reformation was advanced in the Church of England the first care was to let the people have the Bible the publick Liturgie and certain godly Homilies in the English tongue as appeareth by the Statutes 2 3. Edw. vi 5 6. Edw. vi and 1 Eliz. Secondly The like care was taken of the Welch For whose Instruction it was further ordered partly by the Queen and partly by Act of Parliament in the fifth of her Reign that as well the Bible as the Common-Prayer Book should be Translated Printed and Published in that Language one Book of each sort to be provided for every several Church at the Charge of the Parish Which being Printed at the first in the large Church-Volume was afterwards reduced to a more portable bulk for Domestical uses by the cost and charge of Rowland Heylyn Citizen and Alderman of London about the beginning of the Reign of this King But for Ireland no such care was taken The Acts of the Supremacy and of the Consecrations of Archbishops and Bishops were received there as before in England the English Liturgie imposed on them by order from hence and confirmed by Parliament in that Kingdom Which notwithstanding not only the Kernes or natural wild Irish but many of the better sort of the Nation either remain in their old barbarous ignorance or else adhere unto the Pope or finally to their own superstitious fancies as in former times And to say truth it is no wonder that they should there being no care taken to instruct them in the Protestant Religion either by translating the Bible or the English Liturgy into their own Language as was done in Wales but forcing them to come to the English Service which they understood no more than they did the Mass. By means whereof the Irish are not only kept in continual ignorance as to the Doctrine and Devotions of the Church of England but those of Rome are furnished with an excellent argument for having the Service of the Church in a Language which the Common people understand not And though somewhat may be pleaded in excuse thereof during the unquietness of that Kingdom under Queen Elizabeth who had the least part of it in her possession yet no sufficient plea can be made in defence of it for the time succeeding when the whole Country was reduced and every part thereof lay open to the course of Justice So that I cannot look upon it without great amazâ—mâ—nt that none of the Bishops of that Church should take care herein or recommend the miserable condition of that people to tâ—e Court of England Now as Popery continued by this means in the Realm of Ireland so Calvinism was as strongly rooted in that part thereof which professed the Doctrine and Religion of the Church of England And touching this we are to know also that the Calvinian Doctrines being propagated in both Universities by such Divines as lived in exile in Queen Maries time one Peter Baroe a Frenchman obtained to be the Lady Margarets Professor in the Divinity Scâ—ools at Cambridge This man approving better the Melancthonian Doctriâ—â— of Predestination than that of Calvin publickly taught it in tâ—ose Schools and gained in short time very many followers Whitaker was at that time her Majesties Professor for Divinity there and Perkins at the same time was of no small note both Calvinists in these points of Doctrine and both of them supralapsarians also Betwixt these men and Baroe there grew some disputes which afterwards begat some heats and those heats brake out at last into open Factions Hereupon Whitaker Perkins Chaderton and others of the same opinion thought it expedient to effect that by power which they were not able to obtain by Argument And to that end
not the name of the other when it came to his turn The Ships being come and staying for a change of wind the like curtesie was desired of Pennington Admiral of that little Fleet for the present Service Pennington told them that he had no Chaplain that there was in the Ship one Dr. Ambrose his Friend and Kinsman who had borne him company in that Voyage and that he doubted not but that he would readily hearken to them if they made the motion The motion being made and granted Ambrose attends his Admiral to the place of Exercise where he took up his stand very near the Pulpit The Congregation being filled and the Psalm half done a Deacon is sent to put him in mind of going into the Pulpit of whom he desires to be accommodated with a Bible and a Common-Prayer Book The Deacon offered him a Bible but told him that they had no such thing as a Common-Prayer Book and that the Common Prayers were not used amongst them Why then said Ambrose the best is that I have one of my own which being presently taken out of his pocket he began with the Sentences and invitation and was scarce entred into the Confession when all the Church was in an uprore The Elders thereupon in a great amaze sent back the Deacon to desire him to go into the Pulpit and not to trouble them with that which they were not used to Ambrose replied That if they were an English Church they were obliged to serve God by the English Liturgie and that if they would have no Prayers they should have no Sermon and so proceeded on with the rest of the Liturgy which Message being delivered to the Elders the Deacon was sent back the third time requiring him to desist from that unnecessary Service On the receiving of which Message he puts the book into his pocket and goes out of the Church the two Embassadours following him and the Admiral them to the great honour of himself and the confusion of Iohnson from whose mouth I received the story and the other Chaplain being thus shewed their errour in not doing the like That our Bishop was ever made acquainted by the said Iohnson with this passage I am not able to say but whether he were or not he had too much ground for what he did in offering to their Lordships his considerations for regulating Divine Service in that and all other Factories Imployments and Commands of the English Nation That is to say First That the Colonels of the English Regiments in the Low-Countries should entertain no Minister as Preacher to their Regiments but such as should conform in all things to the Church of England to be commended to them by their Lordships the Advice of the Archbishop of Canterbury and York being taken in it Secondly That the Company of Merchants there residing or in any other parts shall admit no Minister as Preacher to them but such as are so qualified and so commended as aâ—oresaid Thirdly That if any Minister hath gotten himself by indirect means to be so commended and should be afterwards found to be unconformable and should not conform himself within three months upon warning giving him by the said Colonels or Deputy Governour of the Factors under whom he liveth he shall be dismist from his imployment and a more orderly man recommended to it Fourthly That every Minister or Chaplain in any Factory or Regiment whether of English or Scots shall read the Common Prayers Administer the Sacraments Catechise the Children and perform all other publick Ministerial duties according to the Rules or Rubricks of the English Liturgie and not otherwise Fifthly That if any Minister or Preacher being the Kings born Subject should with any bitter words or writings in Print or otherwise defame the Church of England by Law established notice thereof is to be given to the Ambassador there and by him to this State by whom the party so offending should be commanded over again to answer for his said offences the like to be done also in derogating from the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church and in Preaching Writing or Printing any thing prejudicial to the Temporal State and Government of the Realm of England Sixthly That no Colonel or Deputy Governour should permit their Minister or Preacher in the case of sickness or necessary absence to bring in any to preach or officiate for him but such an one for whose conformity he would be accountable Seventhly That no Deputy Governours should be sent to Delfe or any other place of Residence for the English Merchants but one that being conformable to the Church of England both in Doctrine and Discipline would take care also that such as be under him shall perform all Church duties before expressed that the party so designed shall be presented to their Lordships by the Merchant Adventurers giving assurance of his fitness and sufficiency for that charge and that some of the chief of the Merchants be sent for to the board and made acquainted with this order Eightly That as often as the said Merchants shall renew their Patents a clause for the due observation of these Instructions or so many of them at the least as should seem necessary to their Lordships to be inserted in the same Ninthly That all his Majesties Agents there from time to time have these Instructions given them in Charge and that once a year they be required to give the Board an account of the Progress of the business that further order might be taken if occasion be Tenthly That the English Ministers in Holland being his Majesties born Subjects be not suffered to hold any Classical meetings but howsoever not to assume the power of Ordination from which if they should not be restrained there would be a perpetual Seminary for breeding up men in Schism and Faction to the disturbance of this Kingdom In reference to the French and Dutch Churches here in England he proceeded in another method first representing the occasion of their settling here their several abuses of that Favour together with the manifold dangers and inconveniencies which might thence arise and next advising such agreeable remedies as he thought most proper for the cure And first he represented to them the great piety of this State in giving liberty to those Nations to enjoy the freedom of their own Religion at London and elsewhere in this Kingdom when being under persecution in their own Countries they could not enjoy the same at home Secondly That it was not the meaning of this State then or at any other time since that the first Generation being worn out their Children and Childrens Children being naturally born Subjects of this Realm should still remain divided from the rest of the Church which must needs alienate them from the State and make them apt to any innovation which may sort better with their humour Thirdly That they still keep themselves as a distinct body of themselves marrying only in their own Tribe with one
County of Kent situate about seven miles from the Sea and neighboured by a little River capable only of small boats and consequently of no great use for the wealth and trading of the place It was made an Archiepiscopal See at the first planting of the Gospel amongst the English Augustine the Monk who first preacht the one being the first Archbishop of the other For though that Dignity was by Pope Gregory the Great designed for London yet Augustine the Monk whom he sent hither on that Errand having received this City in gift from the King resolved to six himself upon it without going further Merlin had prophesied as much if those Prophesies be of any credit signifying that the Metropolitan dignity which was then at London should in the following times be transferred to Canterbury Ethelbert then King of Kent having thus given away the Regal City retires himself unto Reculver where he built his Palace for himself and his Successors in that Kingdom leaving his former Royal Seat to be the Archiepiscopal Palace for the Archbishops of Canterbury The Cathedral having been a Church before in the Britains time was by the said Archbishop Augustine repaired Consecrated and Dedicated to the name of Christ which it still retains though for a long time together it was called St Thomas in honour of Thomas Becket one of the Archbishops hereof who was murthered in it The present Fabrick was begun by Archbishop Lanfranck and William Corboyle and by degrees made perfect by their Successors Take Canterbury as the Seat of the Metropolitan it hath under it twenty one Suffragan Bishops of which seventeen are in England and four in Wales But take it as the Seat of a Diocesan and it containeth only some part of Kent to the number of 257 Parishes the residue being in the Diocess of Rochester together with some few particular Parishes dispersed here and there in several Diocesses it being an ancient priviledge of this See that wheresoever the Archbishops had their Mannors or Advousons the place forthwith became exempt from the Ordinary and was reputed of the Diocess of Canterbury The other Priviledges of this See are that the Archbishop is accounted Primate and Metropolitan of ALL England and is the first Peer of the Realm having precedency of all Dukes not being of the Royal bloud and all the great Officers of the State He hath the Title of Grace afforded him in common speech and writes himself Divina Providentia where other Bishops only use Divina Permissione The Coronation of the King hath anciently belonged unto him It being also formerly resolved that wheresoever the Court was the King and Queen were the proper and Domestical Parishioners of the Archbishop of Canterbury It also did belong unto him in former times to take unto himself the Offerings made at the holy Altar by the King and Queen wheresoever the Court was if he were present at the same and to appoint the Lent Preachers but these time hath altered and the King otherwise disposed of Abroad in General Councils he had place at the Popes Right foot At home this Royal Priviledge That those which held Lands of him were liable for Wardship to him and to compound with him for the same though they held other Lands in chief of our Lord the King And for the more increase of his power and honour it was Enacted 25 Hen. viii and 21. That all Licences and Dispensations not repugnant to the Law of God which heretofore were sued for in the Court of Rome should be hereafter granted by the Archbishop of Canterbury and his Successors As also in the 1 Eliz. and 2. That by the Advice of the Metropolitan or Ecclesiastical Commissioners the Queens Majesty might ordain and publish such Rites and Ceremonies as may be most for the Advancement of Gods glory the Edifying of his Church and the due Reverence of Christs holy Sacraments To this high dignity Laud succeedeth on the death of Abbot nominated unto it by the King on the sixth of August the Election returned and presented to his Majesty from the Dean and Chapter on the twenty fifth of the same and the translation fully perfected on the nineteenth of September then next following on which day he kept a solemn and magnificent Feast at his house in Lambeth his State being set out in the great Chamber of that house and all persons standing bare before it after the accustomed manner his Steward Treasurer and Comptroller attending with their white staves in their several Offices Thus have we brought him to his height and from that height we may take as good a prospect into the Church under his direction as the advantage of the place can present unto us And if we look into the Church as it stood under his direction we shall find the Prelates generally more intent upon the work committed to them more earnest to reduce this Church to the ancient Orders than in former times the Clergy more obedient to the Commands of their Ordinaries joyning together to advance the work of Vniformity recommended to them the Liturgie more punctually executed in all the parts and offices of it the Word more diligently preacht the Sacraments more reverendly administred than in some scores of years before the people more conformable to those Reverend Gestures in the House of God which though prescribed before were but little practised more cost laid out upon the beautifying and adorning of Parochial Churches in furnishing and repairing Parsonage houses than at or in all the times since the Reformation the Clergy grown to such esteem for parts and power that the Gentry thought none of their Daughters to be better disposed of than such as they had lodged in the Arms of a Church-man and the Nobility grown so well affected to the State of the Church that some of them designed their younger Sons to the Order of Priesthood to make them capable of rising in the same Ascendent Next if we look into the Doctrine we shall find her to be no less glorious within than beautified and adorned to the outward eye the Doctrines of it publickly avowed and taught in the literal and Grammatical sense according to the true intent and meaning of the first Reformers the Dictates and Authorities of private men which before had carried all before them subjected to the sense of the Church and the Church hearkening to no other voice than that of their great Shepherd speaking to them in his holy Scriptures all bitternesses of spirit so composed and qualified on every side that the advancement of the great work of Unity and Uniformity between the parties went forwards like the building of Solomons Temple without the noise of Axe or Hammer If you will take her Character from the mouth of a Protestant he will give it thus He that desires to pourtray England saith he in her full structure of external glory let him behold the Church shining in transcendent Empyreal brightness and purity
is nothing more dear to us than the preservation of true Religion as it is now setled and established in this Our Kingdom to the Honour of God the great Comâ—ort of Our Self and Our Loyal People and there can nothing more conduce to the Advancement thereof than the strict observations of such Canons of the Church as concern those who are to take Orders in their several Times more especially of keeping that particular Canon which enjoins That no man be made a Priest without a Title For We find that many not so qualified do by favour or other means procure themselves to be Ordained and afterwards for want of Means wander up and down to the scandal of their Calling or to get Maintenance fall upon such Courses as were most unfit for them both by humouring their Auditors and other ways altogether unsufferable We have therefore thought fit and We do hereby straightly command require and charge you to call such Bishops to you as are now present in or near Our City of London and to acquaint them with this Our Resolution And further That you fail not in the beginning of the next Term to give notice of this Our Will and Pleasure openly in Our High-Commisâ—ion Court and that you call into your said Court every Bishop respectively that shall presume to give Orders to any man that hath not a Title and there to censure him as the Canon aforesaid doth enjoin which is to maintain the Party so Ordered till he give him a Title and with what other Censure you in Iustice shall think fit And Our further Will is That nothing shall be reputed a Title to enable a man for Orders but that which is so by the Ancient Course of the Church and the Canon-Law so far forth as that Law is received in this our Church of England And as you must not fail in these our Directions nor in any part of them so We expect that you give us from time to time a strict Account of your Proceedings in the same Given under Our Signet at Our Palace of Westminster Septemb. 19. in the ninth year of Our Reign 1633. On the Receipt of these Letters which himself had both advised and digested he called such of his Suffragan Bishops who were then about London to come before him acquaints them with the great scandal which was given the Church the danger of Schism and Faction which might thence arise and the more than ordinary displeasure which had been taken by his Majesty and the Lords of his Council at such unlawful and uncanonical Ordinations he required them therefore to be more careful for the time to come and not to give the like offence to his Sacred Majesty who was resolved to see the Canons of the Church in that particular more punctually observed than they had been formerly and to call all such to an account who should presume hereafter to transgress therein Which said he gave to each of them a Copy of his Majesties Letters and sent the like Copies unto all the rest of his Suffragan Bishops inclosed in Letters of his own in which Letters having declared unto them as much as he spake unto the rest touching his Majesties pious Care to redress that Mischief he requires them and every one of them That at all times of Ordination they be very careful to admit none into Holy Orders but such men as for Life and Learning are fit and which have a Title for their maintenance according to the Laws and the ancient Practice of the Church assuring them that his Majesty had commanded him to let them know That he would not fail to call for an account of those his Letters both from him and them and therefore That he did not doubt but that they would have a special care both of the good of the Church and his Majesties Contentment in it The like Letters were sent from his Majesty by his procurement to the Archbishop of York who was as sensible of the inconvenience as himself could be And though nothing was required in either of the said Letters but what had been provided for in the Canon of 1603. yet was it as much inveighed against as if it had been a new device never heard of formerly The reason was because that neither any Lecture nor any possibility of being entertained as a Chaplain in the Houses of Noblemen or others of the inferiour Gentry could be allowed of for a Title and consequently no Orders to be given hereafter under those Capacities But notwithstanding those Reproaches the Archbishops so bestirred themselves and kept such a strict eye on their several Suffragans that from henceforth we hear but little of such vagrant Ministers and Trencher-Chaplains the old brood being once worn out as had pestred and annoyed the Church in those latter Times It is to be observed That the Archbishops Letter to his several Suffragans bears date on the eighteenth of October which day gives date also to his Majesties Declaration about Lawful Sports concerning which we are to know That the Commons in the first Parliament of his Majesties Reign had gained an Act That from thenceforth there should be no Assembly or Concourse of People out of their own Parishes on the Lords day or any Bull-baiting Bear-baiting Enterludes Common Plays or any other unlawful Exercises or Pastimes in their own Parishes on the same Which being gained they obtained another in the third Parliament for inhibiting all Carriers Waggoners Drovers Pack-men for Travelling on the said day with their Horses Waggons Packs c. As also That no Butcher should from thenceforth kill or sell any Victual upon that day either by himself or any other under the several Penalties therein contained And though it was not his Majesties purpose in those Acts to debar any of his good Subjects from any honest and harmless Recreations which had not been prohibited by the Laws of the Land or that it should not be lawful for them in case of necessity to buy a piece of Meat for the use of their Families the Butchers Shop not being set open as on other days yet presently some Publick Ministers of Justice began to put another sense upon those Acts than ever came within the compass of his meaning For at the Summer Assizes held in Exon Anno 1627. an Order was made by Walter then Chief Baron and Denham one of the puisne Barons of the Court of Exchequer for suppressing all Revels Church-Ales Clerk-Ales which had been used upon that day requiring the Justices of the Peace within the said County to see the same put in execution and that every Minister in his Parish-Church should publish the said Order yearly on the first Sunday in February The like Order made in the same year also for the Counties of Somerset and Dorset and probably enough for some of the other Counties of that Western Circuit none of them in those squeasie and unsettled Times being questioned for it And then in
Noble Houses which made them the more insolent and uncontrollable That the Pope had erected an University in Dublin to confront his Majesties Colledge there and breed up the Youth of the Kingdom to his Devotion one Harris being Dean thereof who had dispersed a Scandalous Pamphlet against the Lord Primates Sermon preach'd at Wansteed one of the best Pieces that ever came from him Anno 1629. That since the Dissolving of their new Frieries in the City of Dublin they had Erected them in the Country and had brought the People to such a sottish negligence that they cared not to learn the Commandments as God spake and left them but flocked in Multitudes to the hearing of such Superstitious Doctrines as some of their own Priests were ashamed of That a Synodical Meeting of their Clergy had been held lately at Drogheda in the Province of Vlster in which it was decreed That it was not lawful to take the Oath of Allegiance And therefore That in such a conjuncture of Affairs to think that the bridle of the Army might be taken away must be the thought not of a Brain-sick but of a Brainless man which whosoever did endeavour not only would oppose his Majesties Service but expose his own neck to the Skeanes of those Irish cut-throats All which he humbly refers to his Lordships seasonable Care and Consideration Upon this Information the Deputy obtains his Majesties leave to hold a Parliament in that Kingdom which he managed with such notable dexterity that he made himself Master of a Power sufficient to suppress the Insolencies of the Papists and yet exceedingly prevailed upon their Affections From which time forwards the Popish Recusants in that Kingdom were kept in stricter duty and held closer to loyal Obedience for fear of irritating so severe a Magistrate than ever they had been by any of his Predecessors This Parliament brought with it a Convocation as a thing of course and in that somewhat must be done to check the spreading of Calvinism in all parts of that Church The Articles of Religion agreed upon in Convocation Anno 1615. were so contrived by Vsher the now Lord Primate That all the Sabbatarian and Calvinian Rigours were declared therein to be the Doctrines of that Church Most grievous Torments immediately in his Soul affirmed to be endured by Christ which Calvin makes to be the same with his descent into Hell The abstenencies from eating Flesh upon certain days declared not to be Religious Fasts but to be grounded only 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 that he be Authorized unto it by their several Churches The Sacerdotal Power of Absolution made declarative only and consequently quite subverted No Power ascribed unto the Church in Ordaining 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 made at Gappe in Dolphine And finally such a silence concerning the Consecration of Archbishops and Bishops expresly justified and avowed in the English Book as if there were not a different Order from the Common Presbyters All which being Vsher's own Opinions were dispersed in several places of these Articles for the Church of Ireland approved of in that Convocation and finally confirmed by the Lord Deputy Chichester in the Name of King Iames. By means whereof these two great mischiefs did ensue First A great matter of division which it caused to the Priests and Papists of the Realm that in three Kingdoms under the Obedience of one Sovereign Prince there should be three distinct and contrary Professions and yet pretending every one to the same Religion And secondly Whensoever the Points were agitated here in England against the Sabbatarian and Calvinian Rigours the Disputants were forthwith choaked by the Authority of these Articles and the infallible Judgment of King Iames who confirmed the same If therefore the Archbishop meant to have Peace in England the Church of Ireland must be won to desert those Articles and receive ours in England in the place thereof This to effect it was not thought expedient by such as had the managing of that design to propose any abrogation or repealing of the former Articles which had so many Friends and Patrons in that Convocation that it was moved severally both in the House of the Bishops and in that of the Clergy to have them ratified and confirmed in the present Meeting And questionless it had been carried in that way if it had not seasonably been diverted by telling the Promoters of it That those Articles had already received as much Authority as that Church could give them and that by seeking to procure any such Confirmation they would weaken the Original Power by which they stood This blow being thus handsomly broken their next work was to move the Primate That for the avoiding of such scandal which was given the Papists and to declare the Unity in Judgment and Affections between the Churches a Canon might be passed in approbation of the Articles of the Church of England To this the Prelate being gained the Canon was drawn up and presented to him and being by him propounded was accordingly passed one only man dissenting when it came to the Vote who had pierced deeper into the bottom of the Project than the others did It was desired also by Bramhall not long before the Lord Deputies Chaplain but then Bishop of Derrie That the whole Body of Canons made in the year 1603. might be admitted in that Church But the Primate was ever so afraid of bowing at the Name of IESVS and some other Reverences required in them which he neither practised nor approved that he would by no means hearken to it which bred some heats between him and Bramhall ending at last in this Temperament That some select Canons should be taken out of that Book and intermingled with some others of their own composing But for the Canon which approved and received the Articles of the Church of England it was this that followeth viz. Of the Agreement of the Church of England and Ireland in the Profession of the same Christian Faith FOr the manifestation of our Agreement with the Church of England in the Confession of the same Christian Faith and Doctrine of the Sacraments We do receive and approve the Book of Articles of Religion agreed upon by the Archbishops and Bishops and the whole Clergie in whole Convocation holden at London Anno Dom. 1562. for the avoiding of diversities of Opinions and for the establishing of Consent touching true Religion And therefore if any hereafter shall affirm That any of those Articles are in any part Superstitious and Erroneous or such as he may not with a good Conscience Subscribe unto Let him be Excommunicated
and not Absolved before he make a publick Revocation of his Error Such was the Canon passed in this Convocation for the approbation and reception of the Articles of the Church of England Which Canon was no sooner passed confirmed and published but the Primate and his Party saw the danger which they had cast themselves into by their inadvertency and found too late That by receiving and approving the English Articles they had abrogated and repealed the Irish. To salve this sore it concerned them to bestir themselves with their utmost diligence and so accordingly they did For first the Primate and some Bishops of his opinions required subscription to the Articles of both Churches of all such as came to be ordained at the next Ordination But it went no further than the next for if the Papists made it a matter of Derision to have three Confessions in the three Churches of his Majesties Kingdoms How much more matter must it give them of scorn and laughter that there should be two different Confessions in the same Church and both subscribed unto but as one and the same The Primate next applies himself to the Lord Deputy beseeching him that the former Articles might receive a new Ratification by Act of Parliament for preventing all innovations in the Religion there established But he found but little comfort there the Lord Deputy threatning to cause the said Confession to be burnt by the hand of the hangman if at the least the Scots Commissioners may be believed amongst whose Articles against him I find this for one Finding no better hopes on that side of the Sea he dispatcheth his Letters of Advice to his Friends in England one to an Honourable Person amongst the rest assuring them that though by a Canon passed in that Convocation they had received and approved the Articles of England yet that the Articlers of Ireland were ever called in might well be reckoned for a fancy The like affirmed in a Certificate made by Bernard and Pullen two Members of the Lower House in this Convocation where it is said That whosoever do aver that the said Articles were abolished are grosly mistaken and have abused the said Convocation in delivering so manifest an untruth And to back this another Certificate must be gained from one who comes commended to us under the Title of a most eminent judicious and learned person who having considered of the matter Conceives that both Confessions were consistent and that the Act of the Synod was not a Revocation of the Irish Articles but an approbation of the English as agreeing with them But all this would not serve the turn or save those Articles from being brought under a Repeal by the present Canon For first it appeareth by the Canon That they did not only approve but receive the Articles of the Church of England Their approbation of them had they gone no further had been a sufficient manifestation of their agreement with the Church of England in the Confession of the same Protestant Religion But their receiving of the same doth intimate a superinducing of them upon the other and is equivalent both in Fact and Law to the Repealing of the old For otherwise St. Paul must needs be out in the Rules of Logick when he proved the Abrogating of the old Covenant by the superinduction of a new For having affirmed that God by speaking of a New Covenant had antiquated and made void the first or made the first old as our English read it he adds immediatly That that which is old decayeth and is ready to vanish away that is to say as Diodati descants on it The old being disanulled by the new there must necessarily follow the abolishment of its use and practice Nor find they any other abrogation of the Iewish Sabbath then by the superinducing of the Lords day for the day of worship By means whereof the Sabbath was lessened in authority and reputation by little and little and in short time was absolutely laid aside in the Church of Christ the fourth Commandement by which it was at first ordained being still in force So then according to these grounds the Articles of Ireland were virtually though not formally abrogated or else it must be granted that there were two Confessions in the same one Church different both in form and matter and contrary in some points unto one another which would have been so far from creating an uniformity between the Churches in the concernments of Religion that it would have raised a greater disagreement within Ireland it self than was before between the Churches of both Kingdoms And certainly the gaining of this point did much advantage the Archbishop conducing visibly to the promotion of his ends and Counsels in making the Irish Clergy subject to the two Declarations and accountable for their breaking and neglect thereof that is to say his Majesties Declaration about Lawful Sports and that prefixt before the book of Articles for appeasing Controversies Take for a farewell this acknowledgment of a late Historian speaking as well the sense of others as his own A Convocation concurrent with a Parliament was called saith he and kept at Dublin in Ireland wherein the thirty nine Articles of the Church of England were received in Ireland for all to subscribe unto It was adjudged fit seeing that Kingdom complies with England in the Civil Government it should also conform thereunto in matters of Religion And thereupon he thus concludes That in the mean time the Irish Articles concluded formerly in a Synod 1616. mistaken for 1615. wherein Arminianism was condemned in terminis terminantibus and the observation of the Lords day resolved Iure divino were utterly excluded But leaving Ireland to the care of the Lord Deputy and the Bishop of Derry who under him had the chief managing of the affairs of that Church let us see how the new Archbishop proceeds in England where he had so many plows going at once too many as it after proved to work well together For not thinking he had done enough in order to the peace and uniformity of the Church of England by taking care for it here at home his thoughts transported him with the like affection to preserve it from neglect abroad To which end he had offered some considerations to the Lords of the Council as before was said Anno 1622. relating to the regulation of Gods publick Worship amongst the English Factories and Regiments beyond the Seas and the reducing of the French and Dutch Churches settled in divers parts of this Realm unto some conformity In reference to the first he had not sate long in the Chaire of Canterbury when he procured an Order from the Lords of the Council bearing date Octob. 1. 1633. By which their English Churches and Regiments in Holland and afterwards by degrees in all other Foreign parts and plantations were required strictly to observe the English Liturgie with all the Rites and Ceremonies prescribed in it
communicates to his Grace of Canterbury who thereupon resolves to make that Diocess the Scene of his first Visitation The Diocess of Lincoln was anciently larger than it is the Bishoprick of Ely being taken out of it in the Reign of King Henry the First Anno 1109. and those of Oxon. and Peterborough by King Henry the Eighth Anno 1541. But as it is it is the largest of the Kingdom both for the quantity of ground and the number of Parishes containing in it the whole Counties of Lincoln Leicester Buckingham Bedford Huntington and that part of Hertfordshire which belonged to the Kingdom of Mercia In which Counties are contained 1255 Parishes divided though not equally between six Archdeacons that is to say the Archdeacons of Lincoln How Leicester Buckingham Bedford and Huntingdon each of them having his several Commissaries and every Commissary one or more Surrogates to officiate under him in times of necessary absence Within this great Diocess he begins first laying a Suspension on the Bishop and the six Archdeacons by which they were inhibited from the exercise of their Jurisdiction as long as that Visitation lasted And after sending out a Citation to all the Ministers and Churchwardens of that Diocess he required them to appear at certain times and places before his Vicar General and the rest of the Commissioners authorized for the several Archdeaconries of the same But the Bishop was too stout to yield at the first assault pretending an exemption from such Visitations by old Papall Bulls The Archbishop being herewith startled was not long after very well satisfied in that particular by a Paper which was tendred to him asserting his Metropolitan Right against those Pretences collected out of Histories and old Records Which being compared with the Originals and found to contain nothing but undoubted truths the Bishop is commanded to appear before the Lords of the Council where his Papal Bulls were so well baited by the Archbishop and his Counsel that not being able to hold any long play they ran out of the Field leaving the Bishop to shift for himself as well as he could This Bar removed the Vicar-General proceeds to the Visitation and in all places gives command to the Church-wardens not only to return their Presentments according to the Articles of the Visitation but to transpose the Communion Table to the East end of the Chancel and to â—ence it with a decent Rail to avoid prophaneness according unto such Directions as he had received from the Lord Archbishop He further signified That they were to take especial care of certifying the names of all the Lecturers in their several and respective Parishes as also Whether the said Lecturers and all other Preaching Ministers within that Diocess did carefully observe his Majesties Instructions published in the year 1629. Their knowledge in which Particulars with a Certificate of their doings about the removing of the Communion Table together with their Presentments to the several Articles which were given them in charge to be returned unto him by a time appointed Which Charge thus given and the Visitation carried to another Diocess he leaves the prosecution of it as afterwards in all other places to the care of the Bishop But the Bishop having other designs of his own was no sooner discharged of that Suspension which was laid upon him but he resolves to visit his Diocess in person to shew himself to those of his Clergy and gain the good affections of those especially who adhered to Calvin and Geneva Insomuch that meeting in the Archdeaconry of Buckingham with one Doctor Bret a very grave and reverend man but one who was supposed to incline that way he embraced him in his Episcopal Arms with these words of St. Augustine viz. Quamvis Episcopus major est Presbytero Augustinus tamen minor est Hieronymo Intimating thereby to the great commendation of his modesty amongst those of that Faction That the said Bret was as much greater than Williams as the Bishop was above a Priest And in compliance with that Party he gave command for Railing in the Communion Table as appears by the Extract of his Proceedings in the Archdeaconry of Leicester not placed at the East end of the Chancel with a Rail before it but in the middle thereof as it stood before with a Rail about it And by that kind of half-compliance as he retracted nothing from his own Opinion in his Letter to the Vicar of Grantham so he conceived That he had finely frustrated the design of his Metropolitan and yet not openly proceeded against his Injunction The Visitation thus begun was carried on from year to year till it had gone over all the Diocesses in the Province of Canterbury In the prosecution whereof the Vicar-General having given the Charge and allowed time to the Church-wardens to return a Certificate of their doings in pursuance of it the further execution of it was left to the Bishops in their several Diocesses in which it went forwards more or less as the Bishops were of spirit and affection to advance the Work either in reference to the transposing of the Table or the observation of his Majesties Instructions above-mentioned which had not the least place in the business of this Visitation Wright Bishop of Coventry and Litchfield having given order by his Chancellor for the transposing of the Tables in most parts of his Diocess began at last to cast his eyes on the Churches of the Holy Trinity and St. Michael the Archangel in the City of Coventry concerning which he prescribed these Orders 1. That the Ground at the upper end of the Chancells be handsomly raised by three steps that the Celebration of the Sacrament may be conspicuous to all the Church 2. That the Ground so raised at both Churches the Communion-Table should be removed close to the East-wall of the Chancels 3. That in both Churches all new Additions of Seats in the Chancels be taken away and the Pâ—ws there reduced as near as may be to the ancient form But the Citizens of Coventry found a way to take off his edge notwithstanding that he had received not only his Majesties Command but encouragements also in pursuance of it his Majesty spending at the least a fortnight in that Diocess in the year 1636. at such time as the Bishop came to wait upon him in Tutbury Castle For they so far prevailed upon him at his being in Coventry that in the presence of the Mayor and some others of the Fraternity he appointed That the Communion-Table should be removed from its ascent of three Steps unto the Body of the Chancel during the Administration of the Blessed Sacrament commanding Bird who had the Officiality of the place not to trouble them in it Bird not being well pleased with so much levity in the Bishop gives notice of it unto Latham the Bishops Register in Lichfield by whom it was signified to Lamb by Lamb to the Archbishop and by him to the King from whom
of particular Churches and of some Times only And 3. It in Points of Doctrine Whether such Points have been determined oâ— before in a General Council or in Particular Councils universally received and countenanced or are to be defined de novo on emergent Controversies And these Distinctions being thus laid I shall Answer briefly 1. If the things to be reformed be either Corruptions in Manners or neglect of Publick Duties to Almighty God Abuses either in Government or the Parties governing the King may do it of himself by his sole Authority The Clergy are beholden to him if he takes any of them along with him when he goes about it And if the Times should be so bad that either the whole body of the Clergy or any though the greatest part thereof should oppose him in it he may go forwards notwithstanding punishing such as shall gainsay him in so good a Work and compelling others And this I look on as a Power annexed to the Regal Diadem and so inseparably annexed that Kings could be no longer Kings iâ— it were denied them And on the other side if the Reformation be in Points oâ— Doctrine and in such Points of Doctrine as have not been before defined or not defined in form and manner as before laid down the King only with a few of his Bishops and Learned Clergy though never so well studied in the Point disputed can do nothing in it That belongs only to the whole body of the Clergy in their Convocation rightly called and constituted whose Acts being Ratified by the King bind not alone the rest of the Clergy in whose name they Voted but all the residue of the Subjects of what sort soever who are to acquiesce in their Resolutions But if the thing to be Reformed be a matter practical we are to look into the usage of the Primitive Times And if the Practice prove to have been both ancient and universally received over all the Church though intermitted for a Time and by Time corrupted the King consulting with so many of his Bishops and others of his most able Clergy as he thinks â—it to call unto him and having their Consent and Direction in it may in the case of intermission revive such Practice and in the case of corruption and degeneration restore it to its Primitive and Original Lustre Now that there should be Liturgies for the use of the Church And that those Liturgies should be Celebrated in a Language understood by the People That in those Liturgies there should be some prescribed Forms for Giving the Communion in both Kinds for Baptizing Infants for the reverent Celebration of Marriage performing the 〈◊〉 Office to the Sick and the decent Burial of the Dead as also for set Fasts and appointed Festivals hath been a thing of Primitive and General Practice in the best times of the Church And being such though intermitted and corrupted as before is said the King advising with his Bishops and other Church-men though not in a Synodical way may cause the same to be revised and revived and having fitted them to Edification and encrease of Piety either commend them to the Church by his sole Authority or else impose them on the People under certain Penalties by his Power in Parliament The Kingdom of Heaven said the Reverend Isidore of Sevil doth many times receive increase from these Earthly Kingdoms in nothing more than by regulating and well ordering of Gods Publick Worship Add hereunto what was before alledged for passing the Canons in the same way and then we have the sum of that which was and probably might have been pleaded in defence hereof The prosecution of this Liturgie on the one side and the exaction of those Publick Orders on the other kindled such fires in the breasts of some of the Puritan Faction that presently they brake out into open Flames For first the Scots scattered abroad a virulent and seditioâ—s Libel in the year 1634. wherein the King was not only charged with altering the Government of that Kingdom but traduced for very strong inclinations to the Religion of the Church of Rome The chief Abettor whereof for the Author was not to be found was the Lord Balmerino for which he was Legally convicted and condemned of Treason but pardoned by the Kings great Goodness and by that Pardon kept alive for the mischiefs following And as the English had Scotized in all their Practises by railing threatning and stirring up of Sedition for bringing in the Genevian Discipline in Queen Elizabeths Time so they resolve to follow their Example now Bastwick a Doctor of Physick the second part of Leighton first leads the Dance beginning with a Pestilent Pamphlet called Flagellum Episcoporum Latialium maliciously venomous against the Bishops their Function Actions and Proceedings But this not being likely to do much hurt amongst the People because writ in Latine he seconds it with another which he called his Litany in the English Tongue A Piece so silly and contemptible that nothing but the Sin and Malice which appeared in every line thereof could possibly have preserved it from being ridiculous Prynne follows next and publisheth two Books at once or one immediately on the other one of these called The Quench-Coal in answer unto that called A Coal from the Altar against placing the Communion-Table Altar-wise The other named The Vnbishoping of Timothy and Titus against the Apostolical Institution of Diocesan Bishops But that which was entituled to him by the name of a Libel was The News from Ipswich intended chiefly against Wren then Bishop of Norwich who had taken up his dwelling in that Town as before is said but falling as scandalously foul on the Archbishop himself and some of the other Bishops also and such as acted under them in the present Service For there he descants very trimly as he conceived on the Archbishop himself with his Arch-Piety Arch-Charity Arch-Agent for the Devil that Beelzebub himself had been Archbishop and the like to those a most triumphant Arch indeed to adorn his victories With like reproach he falls on the Bishops generally calling them Luciferian Lord Bishops execrable Traitors devouring Wolves with many other odious names not fit to be used by a Christian and more particularly on Wren telling us That in all Queen Maries times no such havock was made in so short a time of the faithful Ministers of God in any part nay in the whole Land than had been made in his Diocess And then he adds with equal Charity and Truth That Corbet Chancellor to this Bishop had threatned one or two godly Ministers with pistolling and hanging and I know not what because they had refused to read his Majesties Declaration about lawful Sports More of this dish I could have carved but that this may serve sufficiently for a taste of the whole But the great Master-piece of mischief was set out by Burton so often mentioned before who preaching on the fifth of November in his own Parish
first Innovation touching the suppressing of Sermons during the time of the late Fast in infected places contrary to the Orders in former times he answered First That after-Ages might without offence learn to avoid any visible inconvenience observed in the former And secondly That the suppressing of those Sermons was no Act of the Bishops but a Command proceeding on a full debate from the Lords of the Council the better to avoid the spreading of the Contagion And thirdly That as Sermons on the Fast-days had been used of late they were so far from humbling men in the sight of God that they were fitter for other operations as the raising of Sedition amongst the People of which there could not be a clearer instance than in that of Burton To the second That by appointing the Weekly Fasts to be on Wednesdays and those Fasts to be kept without any Sermons there was a plot for suppressing all Wednesday Lectures for ever after It was answered That Wednesday was the usual day for such Publick Fasts That it was named by the Lord Keeper no great Friend to Popery and that those men had lived to see the Fast ended and the Wednesday Lectures still continued To the third That the Prayer for Seasonable Weather was left out of the last Book and that the leaving of it out was one cause of the Shipwracks and Tempestuous Weather which followed after He answered generally first That all Fast-Books are made by the command of the King who alone had Power to call such Fasts and that the Archbishops and Bishops who had the ordering of those Books had also Power under the King of putting in and leaving out of those Books whatsoever they think fit for the present occasion Secondly as to this particular That when the Fast-Book was made the Weather was very Seasonable and the Harvest in and that it was not the Custom of the Church to pray for seasonable Weather when they had it but when it was wanting Thirdly That it was very boldly done to ascribe the cause of those Tempests to the leaving out of that Prayer which God had never revealed unto them and they could not otherwise know but by Revelation To the fourth touching a Clause omitted in the first Collect in which Thanks had been given to God for delivering us from Popish Superstition He answered That though our Fore-fathers had been delivered from such Superstitions yet God be blessed that for our parts we were never in them and therefore could not properly be said to have been delivered To the fifth touching the leaving out of a passage in one of the Orders for the Fast concerning the abuse thereof in relation to Merit he answered That it was left out because in this Age and Kingdom there was little opinion of Merit by Fasting insomuch that all Fasts were contemned and scorned both at Lent and all other set times except such as some humerous men called for of themselves to promote their ends The sixth Innovation charged upon them was the leaving of the Lady Elizabeth and her Children out of one of the Collects And the seventh That out of the same Collect the words Father of thine Elect and of their Seed was expunged also To which it was answered That the said Collect was not in the Common-Prayer-Book confirmed by Law neither King Edward vi nor Queen Elizabeth having any Children Secondly That it was added to the Book at the coming in of King Iames who brought a Princely Issue with him and left out again in the beginning of the Reign of King Charles who at that time and for four years after had no Issue neither Thirdly That as the Lady Elizabeth and her Children were put into the Collect when the King had no Issue of his own so when the King had Issue of his own there was as much reason to leave them out Fourthly For the leaving out of that Clause Father of thine Elect c. it was done by his Predecessor and that the leaving out of the Lady Elizabeth and her Issue was done by the Command of the King The eighth Innovation charged upon them was bowing at the Name of IESVS and altering to that end the words in the Epistle on the Sunday next before Easter by changing IN the Name of Iesus to AT the Name of Iesus And it was answered unto this That bowing at the Name of IESVS was no Innovation made by the Prelates of this Age but required by the Injunction of Queen Elizabeth in the very first beginning of the Reformation And secondly Though it be IN the Name of Iesus in the old Editions of the Liturgie yet it is AT the Name of Iesus in the Translation of Geneva Printed in the year 1567. and in the New Translation Authorised by King Iames. The ninth relates to the Alteration of two Passages in the Form of Prayer set forth by Act of Parliament for the Fifth of November in which Form it is thus expressed Root out the Babylonish Sect which say of Jerusalem Down with it c. And in the other place Cut off those Workers of Iniquity whose RELIGION is REBELLION Which are thus altered in the Books which came out last viz. Root out that Babylonish and Antichristian Sect of them which say c. And in the other Cut off those workers of Iniquity who turn RELIGION into REBELLION c. To which it was replied That the Book of Prayer appointed for the Fifth of November was neither made set forth or commanded to be read by Act of Parliament but only made and appointed to be read by the Kings Authority Secondly That being made and appointed to be read by no other Authority than the Kings the King might alter in it what he thought convenient and that he had the Kings hand for those Alterations What Reasons there might be to move his Majesty to it we may enquire into hereafter on another occasion To the tenth for the leaving out the Prayer for the Navy he answered that the King had then no Fleet at Sea nor any known enemy to assault as he had when that Prayer was first put in and that howsoever if there had been any design to bring in Popery to which these Innovations must be made subserviâ—nt they should rather have kept in that Prayer than have left it out Concerning the Communion Table there were three Innovations urged the placing of it Altarwise reading the second Service at it and bowing towards or before it For answer to the first It was proved to have been no Innovation in regard of Practice because it had so stood in his Majesties Chappels and divers Cathedrals of this Kingdom since the first Reformation Which posture if it be decent and convenient for the Service of God either in the Kings Chappels or Cathedrals it may be used also in other Churches but if it served to bring in Popery it was not to be used in them Nor was it any Innovation in regard of Law
This being a matter easily to be proved they were required to make up their number according to their first Foundation by King Henry vi But against this the Fellows pleaded That out of an hatred to their Founder a great part of their Lands had been taken from them by King Edward iv conferred by him upon the Abby of Westminster and the Church of Windsor and by them enjoyed until this day and that they hoped his Grace would not tye them to maintain the whole number of their Fellows with little more than half their Lands To which so reasonable a desire upon full proof made of the Suggestion his Grace did readily consent and left them in the same state in which he found them The noise of these Proceedings in England in the Iune and Iuly of this year being quickly posted to the Scots became a principal Incentive of those Combustions which not long after inflamed that Kingdom For it could be no hard matter for the Presbyterians there to possess the People with the sense of the like smart Sufferings by the Pride and Tyranny of their Bishops if they permitted them to grow great and powerful and did not cast about in time to prevent the mischief And to exasperate them the more the Superstitions of the Liturgie now at the point of being put in execution were presented to them which if once settled amongst them as was then intended would in short time reduce them under the Obedience of the Church of Rome They could not but confess That many things which were found fault with in the English Liturgie were in this altered unto the better the name of Priest so odious unto them of the Puritan Faction changed to that of Presbyter no fewer than sixty Chapters or thereabouts taken out of the Apocrypha appointed to be read by the Church in the English Book reduced to two and those two to be read only on the Feast of All-Saints The new Translation Authorised by King Iames being used in the Psalms Epistles Gospels Hymns and Sentences instead of the old Translation so much complained of in their Books and Conferences But what was this compared with those Superstitions those horrible Corruptions and Idolatries now ready to be thrust upon them in which this Liturgy as much exceeded that of England as that of England had departed from the simplicity and purity of the holier Churches Now therefore somewhat must be done to oppose the entrance of the Popish superstitious Service-Book either now or never But the Presbyterian Ministers who had gone thus far did not alone bring fewel to feed this flame to which some men of all degrees and qualities did contribute with them The Lords and Gentry of the Realm who feared nothing so much as the Commission of surrendries above mentioned laid hold on this occasion also and they being seconded by some male-contented Spirits of that Nation who had not found the King to be as prodigal of his bounties to them as his Father had been before endeavoured to possess them with Fears and Jealousies that Scotland was to be reduced to the Form of a Province and governed by a Deputy or Lord Lieutenant as Ireland was The like done also by some Lords of secret Counsel who before had governed as they listed and thought their power diminished and their persons under some neglect by the placing of a Lord President over them to direct in Chief So that the People generally being fooled into this opinion that both their Christian and Civil Liberty was in no small danger became capable of any impression which the Presbyterian Faction could imprint upon them nor did they want incouragements from the Faction in England to whom the Publication of the Book for Sports the transposing of the holy Table the suppressing of so many Lecturers and Afternoon Sermons and the inhibiting of Preaching Writing Printing in defence of Calvinism were as distasteful and offensive as the new Liturgie with all the supposed superstitions of it was to those of Scotland This Combination made and the ground thus laid it is no wonder if the people brake out into those distempers which soon after followed Sunday the 23 of Iuly was the day appointed for the first reading of the New Liturgy in all the Churches of that Kingdom and how it sped at Edenborough which was to be exemplary to all the rest shall be told by another who hath done it to my hand already Iuly 23. being Sunday the Dean of Edenborough began to read the Book in St. Giles his Church the chief of that City but he had no sooner entred on it than the inferiour multitude began in a tumultuous manner to fill the Church with uprore whereupon the Bishop of Edenborough stept into the Pulpit and hoping to appease them by minding them of the Sanctity of the place they were the more enraged throwing at him Cudgels Stools and what was in the way of Fury unto the very endangering of his life Upon this the Archbishop of St. Andrews Lord Chancellor was enforced to call down from the Gallery the Provost Bailiffs and other Magistrates of the City to their assistance who with much ado at length thrust the unruly Rabble out of the Church and made fast the doors This done the Dean proceeded in reading the Book the multitude in the mean while rapping at the doors pelting the Windows with stones and endeavouring what in them lay to disturb the Sacred Exercise but notwithstanding all this clamour the Service was ended but not the peoples rage who waiting the Bishops retiring to his Lodging so assaulted him as had he not been rescued by a strong hand he had probably perisht by their violence Nor was S. Giles his Church thus only pestered and profaned but in other Churches also though not in so high a measure the peoples disorders were agreeable The Morning thus past the Lord Chancellor and Council assembled to prevent the like darings in the Afternoon which they so effected as the Liturgy was read without any disturbance Only the Bishop of Edenborough was in his return to his Lodging rudely treated by the people the Earl of Roxboroughs Coach in which he passed serving for no protection to him though Roxborough himself was highly favoured of the People and not without some cause suspected to have had a hand in the Commotions of that day The business having thus miscarried in Edenborough stood at a stand in all other Churches of that Kingdom and therefore it will not be amiss to enquire in this place into the causes and occasions of it it seeming very strange to all knowing and discerning men that the Child that had so long lain in the Womb perfectly formed and now made ready for the birth should not have strength enough to be delivered Amongst which causes if disposed into ranke and order that which appears first is the confidence which Canterbury had in the Earl of Traquaire whom he had raised from the condition of a
private Laird to be a Peer of that Realm made him first Treasurer Depute Chancellor of the Exchequer we should call him in England afterwards Lord Treasurer and Privy Counsellor of that Kingdom This man he wrought himself so far into Lauds good liking when he was Bishop of London only that he looked upon him as the fittest Minister to promote the Service of that Church taking him into his nearest thoughts communicating to him all his Counsels committed to his care the conduct of the whole Affair and giving order to the Archbishops and Bishops of Scotland not to do any thing without his privity and direction But being an Hamiltonian Scot either originally such or brought over at last he treacherously betrayed the cause communicated his Instructions to the opposite Faction from one time to another and conscious of the plot for the next daies tumult withdrew himself to the Earl of Mortons house of Dalkeith to expect the issue And possible it is that by his advice the executing of the Liturgy was put off from Easter at what time the reading of it was designed by his Majesty as appears by the Proclamation of December 20. which confirmed the Book By which improvident delay he gave the Presbyterian Faction the longer time to confederate themselves against it and to possess the people with Fears and Jealousies that by admitting of that book they should lose the Purity of their Religion and be brought back unto the Superstitions and Idolatries of the Church of Rome And by this means the People were inflamed into that Sedition which probably might have been prevented by a quicker prosecution of the Cause at the time appointed there being nothing more destructive of all publick Counsels than to let them take wind amongst the People cooled by delaies and finally blown up like a strong Fortress undermined by some subtle practice And there were some miscarriages also amongst the Prelates of the Kirk in not communicating the design with the Lords of the Council and other great men of the Realm whose Countenance both in Court and Country might have sped the business Canterbury had directed the contrary in his Letters to them when the first draughts of the Liturgy were in preparation and seems not well pleased in another of his to the Archbishop of St. Andrews bearing date September 4. that his advice in it was not followed nor the whole body of the Council made acquainted with their Resolutions or their advice taken or their power called in for their assistance till it was too late It was complained of also by some of the Bishops that they were made strangers to the business who in all Reason ought to have been trusted with the knowledge of that intention which could not otherwise than by their diligence and endeavours amongst their Clergy be brought to a happy execution Nor was there any care taken to adulce the Ministers to gain them to the Cause by fair hopes and promises and thereby to take off the edge of such Leading men as had an influence on the rest as if the work were able to carry on it self or have so much Divine assistance as countervailed the want of all helps from man And which perhaps conduced as much to the destruction of the Service as all the rest a publick intimation must be made in all their Churches on the Sunday before that the Liturgie should be read on the Lords day following of purpose as it were to unite all such as were not well affected to it to disturb the same And there were some miscarriages also which may be looked on as Accessories after the Fact by which the mischief grew remediless and the malady almost incurable For first the Archbishops and Bishops most concerned in it when they saw what hapned consulted by themselves apart and sent up to the King without calling a Council or joyning the Lay Lords with them whereas all had been little enough in a business of that nature and so much opposed by such Factious persons as gathered themselves on purpose together at Edenborough to disturb the Service A particular in which the Lay Lords could not be engaged too far if they had been treated as they ought But having run upon this error they committed a worse in leaving Edenborough to it self and retiring every one to his own Diocess except those of Galloway and Dumblaine For certainly they must needs think as Canterbury writes in one of his Letters to Traquaire that the Adverse party would make use of the present time to put further difficulties upon the work and therefore that they should have been as careful to uphold it the Bishop of Ross especially whose hand had been as much in it as the most But possibly the Bishops might conceive the place to be unsecure and therefore could not stay with safety neither the Lords of the Council nor the Magistrates of the City having taken any course to bring the chief Ringleaders of the Tumult to the Bar of Justice which must needs animate all disaffected and seditious persons and almost break the hearts of those who were well enclined And such indeed was the neglect of the Civil Magistrate that we hear of no man punished scarce so much as questioned for so great a Riot as was not to be expiated but by the death or some proportionable punishment of the chief offenders Which had it been inflicted on some three or four for a terror to others it might have kept that City quiet and the whole Kingdom in obedience for the time to come to the saving of the lives of many thousands some hundreds of thousands at the least in all the three Kingdoms most miserably lost in those long and cruel Wars which ensued upon it But the Lords of Scotland were so far from looking before them that they took care only for the present and instead of executing Justice on the Malefactors suspended the Liturgie it self as the cause of the Tumult conceiving it a safer way to calm the differences than to encrease the storm by a more rigorous and strict proceeding All that they did in order to his Majesties Service or the Churches peace was the calling in of a scandalous Pamphlet entituled A dispute against the English Popish Ceremonies obtruded on the Kirk of Scotland which not being done till October 20 following rather declared their willingness to suffer the said Book to be first dispersed and set abroad then to be called in and suppressed Nor seemed the business to be much taken to heart in the Court of England from whom the Scots expected to receive Directions Nor Order given them for unsheathing the Sword of Justice to cut off such unsound and putrified Members which might have saved the whole Body from a Gangreen the drawing of some Blood in the Body Politick by the punishment of Malefactors being like letting Blood in the Body Natural which in some strong Distempers doth preserve the whole Or granting that the Tumult
on all such Books which they found to be Schismatical and Offensive and bring them to the said Archbishop or Bishop or to the High-Commission Office And finally That no Merchant Bookseller c. should Print or cause to be Printed beyond the Seas any Book or Books which either totally or for the greatest part were written in the English Tongue whether the said Books have been here formerly Printed or not nor shall willingly or knowingly Import any such Books into this Kingdom upon pain of being proceeded against in either of the said two Courts respectively as before is said By means of which Decree he had so provided both at home and abroad That neither the Patience of the State should be exercised as in former times with continual Libels nor the Church troubled by unwarrantable and Out-landish Doctrines But good Laws are of no effect without execution and if he took no care for that he had lost his labour King Iames had manifested his dislike of the Genevian Bibles and the Notes upon them some of which did not only teach Disobedience to Kings and Princes but the murthering of them also if they proved Idolaters and others did not only teach the Lawfulness of breaking Faith and Promise when the keeping of it might conduce to the hurt of the Gospel but ranked Archbishops Bishops and all men in Holy Orders or Academical Degrees amongst those Locusts in the Revelation which came out of the Pit That King gave Order thereupon That the Bible of the New Translation should be printed with no Notes at all which course he also recommended to the Synod of Dort to be observed in the new Translation of the Bible into the Dutch or German Tongue which was then intended Upon this ground the Printing of those Bibles with Notes upon them had been forbidden in this Kingdom but were Printed in Holland notwithstanding and brought over hither the better to keep up the Faction and aâ—â—ront Authority Some of them had before been seised in Holland by the care of Boswel the Resident at the Hague And in the beginning of this year he received Advertisement of a new Impression of the same designed for England if the terrour of this Decree did not stop their coming Because Holland and the rest of the Provinces under the Government of the States was made the Receptacle of many of our English Malecontents who there and from thence vented their own Passions and the Discourses of their Party in this Kingdom to the disturbance of the Church it concerned him to keep a careful watch over them and their Actions Of these he had Advertisement from time to time by one Iohn Le Maire and thereupon by the means of Boswell his right trusty Friend he dealt so effectually with the States-General of those Provinces that they made a Proclamation against the Printers and Spreaders of Libellous and Seditious Books against the Church and Prelates of England and tooke Order with the Magistrates of Amsterdam and Rotterdam two great Towns in Holland for apprehending and punishing of such Englishmen as had Printed any of the said Lawless and Unlicenced Pamphlets There was a time when Queen Elizabeth beheld the Pope as her greatest Enemy in reference to her Mothers Marriage her own Birth and consequently her Title to the Crown of England and many of the Books which were Printed in and about that time were full of bitterness and revilings against the Church of Rome it self and all the Divine Offices Ceremonies and Performances of it There was a time also when the Calvinian Doctrines were embraced by many for the Genuine Doctrines of this Church to the great countenancing of the Genevian Discipline and Forms of Administration And not a few of the Books then Printed and such as after were Licenced in Abbot's Time aimed principally at the Maintenance of those Opinions which the latter Times found inconsistent with the Churches Doctrines With equal diligence he endeavoured by this Decree to hinder the Reprinting of the one and the other that so the Church might rest in quiet without any trouble or molestation in her self or giving offence to any other As little Trouble could be feared from Lecturers as they now were Regulated The greatest part of those who had been Superinducted into other Mens Cures like a Doctor added to the Pastor in Calvin's Plat-form had deserted their Stations because they would not read the Common-Prayers in their Hoods and Surplices according to the Kings Instructions before remembred such as remained being either founded on a constant or certain Maintenance or seeing how little was to be gotten by a fiery and ungoverned Zeal became more pliant and conformable to the Rules of the Church Not a Lecturer of this kind found to stand out in some great Diocesses to keep up the Spirits of the Faction and create disturbances And as for Combination-Lecturers named for the most part by the Bishops and to them accountable they also were required in some places to read the second Service at the Communion-Table to go into the Pulpit at the end of the Nicene Creed to use no other form of Prayer than that of the 55th Canon after the Sermon ended to go back to the Table and there read the Service All which being to be done in their Hoods and Surplices kept off the greatest part of the rigid Calvinists from exercising their Gifts as formerly in great Market-Towns And as for the position of the Communion-Table it was no longer left to private Instructions as it was at the first when the Inquiry went no further than Whether the Lords Table was so conveniently placed that the Minister might best be seen and heard of the Congregation The more particular disposing of it being left to Inference Conjecture or some private Directions It now began to be more openly avowed in the Visitation-Articles of several Bishops and Archdeacons some of which we shall here produce as a light to the rest For thus we find it in the Articles for the Archdeaconry of Buckingham Anno 1637. Art 5. Have you a decent Table or a Frame for the Holy Communion placed at the East end of the Chancel Is it Railed in or Enclosed so as Men or Boys cannot sit upon it or throw their Hats upon it Is the said Rail and Inclosure so made with Settles and kneeling-Benches at the foot or bottom thereof as the Communicants may fitly kneel there at the Receiving of the Holy Communion The like for the Diocess of Norwich in the year before where we find it thus viz. Have you in your Church a Communion Table a Carpet of Silk c. And is the same placed conveniently so as the Minister may best be heard in his Administration and the greatest number may reverently Communicate To that end Doth it ordinarily stand up at the East end of the Chancel where the Altar in former times stood the ends thereof being placed North and South And in another Article it is
Hierarchy and the Church of England against the Practices of the Scots and Scotizing English and no less busied in digesting an Apologie for vindicating the Liturgie commended to the Kirk of Scotland In reference to the last he took order for translating the Scottish Liturgy into the Latine Tongue that being published with the Apologie which he had designed it might give satisfaction to the world of his Majesty Piety and his own great care the Orthodoxie and simplicity of the Book it self and the perverseness of the Scots in refusing all of it Which Work was finished and left with him but it went no further the present distemper of the times and the troubles which fell heavily on him putting an end to it in the first beginning But the best was that the English Liturgie had been published in so many Languages and the Scottish so agreeable to the English in the Forms and Offices that any man might judge of the one by perusing the other The first Liturgie of King Edward vi translated into Latine by Alexander Alesius a learned Scot for the better information of Martin Bucer when he first came to live amongst us the second Liturgie of that King with Queen Elizabeths Emendations by Walter Haddon President of Magdalen Colledge in Oxon. and Dean of Exeter and his Translation rectified by Dr. Morket in the times of King Iames according to such Explications and Additions as were made by order from the King The same translated into French for the use of the Isle of Iersey by the appointment of the King also into the Spanish for the better satisfaction of that Nation by the prudent care of the Lord Keeper Williams And finally by the countenance and encouragement of this Archbishop translated into Greek by Petley much about this time that so the Eastern Churches might have as clear an information of the English Piety as the Western had In order to the other he recommended to Hall then Bishop of Exon. the writing of a book in defence of the Divine Right of Episcopacy in opposition to the Scots and their Adherents Exeter undertakes the Work and sends him a rude draught or Skeleton of his design consisting of the two main points of his intended discourse together with the several Propositions which he intended to insist on in pursuance of it The two main points which he was to aim at were First That Episcopacy is a lawful most ancient holy and divine institution as it is joyned with imparity and superiority of Jurisdiction and therefore where it hath through Gods providence obtained cannot by any humane power be abdicated without a manifest violation of Gods Ordinance And secondly That the Presbyterian Government however vindicated under the glorious names of Christs Kingdom and Ordinance hath no true footing either in Scripture or the Practice of the Church in all Ages from Christs time till the present and that howsoever it may be of use in some Cities or Territories wherein Episcopal Government through iniquity of times cannot be had yet to obtrude it upon a Church otherwise settled under an acknowledged Monarchy is utterly incongruous and unjustifiable In which two points he was to predispose some Propositions or Postulata as he calls them to be the ground of his proceedings which I shall here present in his own conceptions that so we may the better judge of those corrections which were made upon them The Postulata were as followeth viz. 1. That Government which was of Apostolical Institution cannot be denied to be of Divine Right 2. Not only that Government which was directly commanded and enacted but also that which was practiced and recommended by the Apostles to the Church must justly pass â—or an Apostolical Institution 3. That which the Apostles by Divine Inspiration instituted was not for the present time but for continuance 4. The universal Practice of the Church immediately succeeding the Apostles is the best and surest Commentary upon the Practice of the Apostles or upon their Expressions 5. We may not entertain so irreverent an opinion of the Saints and Fathers of the Primitive Church that they who were the immediate Successors of the Apostles would or durst set up a Government either faulty or of their own heads 6. If they would have been so presumptuous yet they could not have diffused an uniform form of Government through the world in so short a space 7. The ancient Histories of the Church and Writings of the eldest Fathers are rather to be believed in the report of the Primitive Form of the Church-Government than those of this last Age. 8. Those whom the ancient Church of God and the holy and Orthodox Fathers condemned for Hereticks are not fit to be followed as Authors of our Opinion or Practice for Church-Government 9. The accession of honourable Titles or Priviledges makes no difference in the substance of the calling 10. Those Scriptures wherein a new Form of Government is grounded have need to be very clear and unquestionable and more evident than those whereon the former rejected Politie is raised 11. If that Order which they say Christ set for the Government of the Church which they call the Kingdom and Ordinance of Christ be but one and undoubted then it would and shall have been ere this agreed upon against them what and which it is 12. It this which they pretend be the Kingdom and Ordinance of Christ then if any Essential part of it be wanting Christs Kingdom is not erected in the Church 13. Christian Politie requires no impossible or absurd thing 14. Those Tenets which are new and unheard of in all Ages of the Church in many and Essential points are well worthy to be suspected 16. To depart from the Practice of the Universal Church of Christ ever from the Apostles times and to betake our selves voluntarily to a new Form lately taken up cannot but be odious and highly scandalous These first Delineations of the Pourtraicture being sent to Lambeth in the end of October were generally well approved of by the Metropolitan Some lines there were which he thought to have too much shadow and umbrage might be taken at them if not otherwise qualified with a more perfect Ray of Light And thereupon he takes the Pensil in his hand and with some Alterations of the Figure accompanied with many kind expressions of a fair acceptance he sent them back again to be compleatly Limned and Coloured by that able hand Which alterations what they were and his reasons for them I shall adventure to lay down as they come before me that so the Reader may discern as well the clearness of his apprehension and the excellency of his judgment in the points debated The Letter long and therefore so disposed of without further coherence that so it may be perused or pretermitted without disturbance to the sequel some preparations being made by the hand of his Secretary he proceeds thus to the rest The rest of your Letter is fitter to be
Worship of God his design to bring in Popery by the back-door of Arminianism and his endeavouring of a Reconciliation betwixt us and Rome And first as touching such Innovations in the Worship of God he makes a general purgation of himself in his Speech made in the Star-Chamber the sum and substance whereof you have seen before Out of which I shall only take this short and pithy Declaration which he makes of himself in relation to this part of his charge viz. I can say it clearly and truly as in the presence of God that I have done nothing as a Prelate to the utmost of what I am conscious but with a single heart and with a sincere intention for the good Government and honour of the Church and the maintenance of the Orthodox truth and Religion of Christ professed established and maintained in the Church of England For my care of this Church the reducing it to Order the upholding of the External Worship of God in it and the settling of the Rules of its first Reformation are the cause and the sole cause whatsoever is pretended of this malicious storm that hath lowred so black upon me and some of my Brethren The like Declaration he also makes in his first Speech to the Lords at the time of his tryal where we find it thus Ever since I came into place saith he I have laboured nothing more than that the External Worship of God so much slighted in divers parts of this Kingdom might be preserved and that with as much Decency and Uniformity as might be For I evidently saw that the publick neglect of Gods Service in the outward face of it and the nasty lying of many places dedicated to that Service had almost cast a damp upon the true and inward Worship of God which while we live in the body needs External helps and all little enough to keep it in any vigour And this I did to the utmost of my knowledge according both to Law and Canon and with the consent and liking of the People nor did any Command issue out from me against the one or the other And finally we shall find the like Declaration made by him on the Scaâ—fold at the time of his death in which sad hour there was no dissembling and I conceive all charitable men will believe so of it before God or man But because it relates also to the next particular we shall there meet with it And for the next particular concerning the designing to bring in â—â—pery it hath been further aggravated by his correspondency with tâ—e Popes Ministers here in England and his indulgence to that Party upon all occasions But of this he cleansed himself sufficiently in the 〈◊〉 Chamiber Speech before remembred in which he publickly avowed First That he knew of no plot or purpose of altering the Religion established Secondly That he had never been far from attempting any thing that may truly be said to tend that way in the least degree And thirdly having offered his Oath for the other two that it the King had a mind to change Religion which he knew he had not his Majesty must seek for other Instruments how basely soever those men had conceived of him The like 〈…〉 gives also in the last hour of his life when he was goâ—â—â— to tender an account of all his Actions before Gods Tribunal â—here is a Clamour that I would have brought in Popery but I was 〈◊〉 and baptized saith he in the bosome of the Church of England established by Law in that profession I have ever since lived and in that I come now to dye This is no time to dissemble with God least of all in matters of Religion and therefore I 〈◊〉 it may be remembred I have alwaies lived in the Protestant Religion established in England and in that I come now to die And then he adds with reference to the point before What Clamours and slanders I have endured for labouring to keep an Uniformity in the External Service of God according to the Doctrine and Discipline of this Church all men know and I have abundantly 〈◊〉 His Conference with Fisher the Iesuite in the year 1622. and 〈…〉 of that Conference Anno 1637. with Derings attestation 〈…〉 before we had do most abundantly evince this truth at he approved not the Doctrine of the Church of Rome And as 〈◊〉 approveâ— not of their Doctrines so he as much disliked their 〈◊〉 for gaining Proselytes or multiplying their followers in all 〈…〉 the Kingdom concerning which he tells his Majesty That 〈…〉 never had advised a persecution of the Papists in any 〈◊〉 yet God forbid saith he that your Majesty should let born Laws and Discipline sleep for fear of a Persecution and in the mean time let Mr. Fisher and his Fellows Angle in all parts of your Dominions for your Subjects If in your Grace and Goodness you will spare their persons yet I humbly beseech you to see to it that they be not suffered to lay either their Weels or bait their Hâ—oks or cast their Nets in every stream least the Temptation grow both too general and too strong So he in the Epistle Dedicatory to his Large Relation of the Conference between him and Fisher published in the end of the year forgoing Assuredly it must needs seem extremely ridiculous to others and contradictory to it self to confute the chief Doctrines of the Papists and oppose their practicings if he â—ad had any such design to bring in Popery And being thus averse from them in point of Doctrine he declined all correspondence and acquaintance with them whereby he might come under the suspicion of some secret Practice I hold it probable enough that the better to oblige the Queen unto him of whose Prevalency in the Kings affections he could not be ignorant he might consent to Con's coming hither over from the Pope to be assistant to her in such affairs as the nature of her Religion might occasion with the Sea of Rome But he kept himself at such a distance that neither Con nor Panzani before him who acted for a time in the same capacity could fasten any acquaintance on him The Pamphlet called The Popes Nuncio Printed in the year 1643. hath told us That Panzani at his being here did desire a Conference with the Archbishop of Canterbury but was put of and procrastinated therein from day to day That at the last he departed the Kingdom without any Speech with him The like we find in the discovery of Andreas ab Habernfield who tells us of this Con That finding the Kings Judgment to depend much on the Archbishop of Canterbury his faithful Servant he resolved to move every stone and bend all his strength to gain him to his side being confident he had prepared the means For he had a command to make offer of a Cardinals Cap to the Lord Archbishop in the name of the Pope of Rome and that he should allure him
grosly abused by the multiplicity of Libellous Pamphlets and my self debarred from wonted access to the best of Princes and it is Vox Populi that I am Popishly affected How earnest I have been in my Disputations Exhortations and otherwise to quench such sparks lest they should become Coals I hope after my death you will all acknowledge yet in the midst of all my afflictions there is nothing 〈◊〉 hath so nearly touched me as the remembrance of your free and joyful acceptance of me to be your Chancellour and that I am now shut up from being able to do you that Service which you might justly expect from me When I first received this honour I intended to have carried it with me to my Grave neither were my hopes any less since the Parliament called by his Majesties Royal Command committed me to this Royal Prison But sith by reason of matters of greater consequence yet in hand the Parliament is pleased to procrastinate my Trial I do hereby as thankfully resign my Office of being Chancellor as ever I received that Dignity entreating you to Elect some Honourable Person who upon all occasions may be ready to serve you and I beseech God send you such an one as may do all things for his glory and the furtherance of â—â—ur most famous Vniversity This is the continual Prayer of Your dejected Friend and Chancellour Being the last time I shall write so Will. Cant. Tower Iune 28 1641. This Resignation having eased him of some part of his cares it was no small refreshment to him in the midst of his sorrows that notwithstanding all the clamour about Innovations the Parliament had made no Order to alter any thing which he had laboured to establish The Commons might perhaps have some thoughts that way but they either kept them to themselves or found but little comfort in them when they suffered them to go abroad or shew themselves in any motion to the House of Lords The Peers were then so far from entertaining any such extravagant Fancies that taking notice of the Irregular Zeal of some forward men who had not patience enough to attend the leisure of Authority they joyned together with the Prelates in this Order of Ianuary 16. for putting a stop to their Exorbitancies at the first breaking out For by that Order it was signified to be the pleasure of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal assembled in the High Court of Parliament That the Divine Service be performed as it is appointed by the Acts of Parliament of this Realm And that all such as shall disturb that wholsom Order shall be severely punished according to the Law And the Parsons Vicars and Curates in the several Parishes shall forbear to introduce any Rites or Ceremonies that may give offence otherwise than those which are established by the Laws of the Land Which last Clause being couched in such general terms related only to such Rites and Ceremonies as otherwise might have been introduced for the time to come not unto such as had been entertained and settled by any former Authority Countenanced and secured by which Declaration the Ordinaries went on chearfully in the exercise of their Jurisdiction suffering no alteration or disturbance to pass unquestioned if any troublesome or unquiet person did begin to stir But no sooner was the Coercive power of Bishops and other Ecclesiastical Judges restrained or rather utterly abolished by the late Act of Parliament and the Kings Journey into Scotland left men and matters at more liberty than before they were but presently the House of Commons took upon them such a Reformation so it must be called in which they neither found concurrence of the House of Peers or could expect it from the King But finding that they were strong enough to set up for themselves without working Journey-work any longer unto either of them they made the following Order of September 8. to be the first Experiment or Essay of their undertakings For though in a Conference had the same day with the Lords they desired their consent therein and that the Lords returned them no other Answer than by sending them the next day being the day of the Recess a Copy of the former Order of Ianuary 16. in which they desired then to concur yet Pym who governed the Committee during that Recess dispatcht his Mandate oâ— the 29 th of the same month over all the Kingdom requiring all Ministers and Churchwardens to publish the said Order in their several Churches to see it put in execution and cause Certificates to be made thereof by the time appointed Which Order being the Leading Card to the Game that followed was verbatim thus viz. WHereas divers Innovations in or about the Worship of God have been lately practised in this Kingdom by enjoyning sâ—me things and prâ—â—â—â—â—â—ng others without warrant of Law to the great grievance and disconâ—ent of his Majesties Subjects For the suppression of such Innovations and for preservation of the Publick Peace It is this day Ordered by the Commons in Parliament assembled That the Churchwardens of every Parish Church or Chappel respectively doth forthwith remove the Communion Table from the East end of the Church Chappel or 〈…〉 some other convenient place and that they take away the 〈…〉 the Chancâ—ls as heretofore they were before the late 〈…〉 That all Crucifixes scandalous Pictures of any one or 〈…〉 of tâ—e Trinity and all Images of the Virgin Mary shall 〈…〉 and aâ—olished and that all Tapers Candlesticks and 〈…〉 from the Communion Table That all Corporal Bâ—w 〈…〉 IESVS or toward the East end of the Church 〈…〉 or towards the Communion Table be henceforth 〈…〉 That the Orders aforesaid be observed in all the several Ca 〈…〉 Churches of this Kingdom and all the Colledges Churches or 〈◊〉 in the two Vniversities or any other part of this Kingdom 〈◊〉 in thâ— Temple Church and the Chappels of other Inns of Court 〈◊〉 the Deaâ—s of the said Cathedral Churches by the Vice-Chancellours of the said Vniversities and by the Heads and Governours of the several Câ—lleâ—ges and Halls aforesaid and by the Benchers and Readers in 〈…〉 Inns â—f Court respectively That the Lords day shall be duly obsâ—râ—ed and sanctified All Dancing or other Sports either before or after Diâ—iâ—e Service be forborne and restrained and that the Preaching 〈…〉 â—â—rd be permitted in the Afternoon in the several Churches and Chappels of this Kiâ—gdom and that Ministers and Preachers be encouâ—â—gâ—d thereunto That the Vice-Chancellours of the Vniversities Heads 〈…〉 Colledges all Parsons Vicars Churchwardens do 〈◊〉 Câ—rtificate of the performance of these Orders and if the same shall 〈◊〉 be observed in any places aforementioned upon complaint therâ—of made to the two next Iustices of the Peace Major and Head-Officers of Cities and Towns Corporate It is ordered That the said Iustices Major and other Head-Officer respectively shall examine the 〈◊〉 of all such complaints and certifie by whose default the same are â—â—mitted All which Certificates are to
the Kingdom At Hull he had a Magazine of Arms and Ammunition provided for the late intended War against the Scots and laid up there when the occasion of that War was taken away Of this Town he intended to possess himself and to make use of his own Arms and Ammunition for his own preservation but coming before the Gates of the Town he was denied entrance by Hoâ—ham who by the appointment of the House of Commons had took charge of that place The Gentry of Yorkshire who had Peâ—â—tioned the King to secure that Magazine became hereby more firmly united to him The like had been done also by the Yeomandry and those of the inferiour sort if his proceedings had not been undermined by a Committee of four Gentlemen all the Members of the House of Commons and all of them Natives of that County sent thither purposely in a new and unprecedent way to lie as Spies upon his Counsels and as Controllers to his Actions Some Messages there were betwixt him and the Houses of Parliament concerning the atoning of these differences whilst he was at York but the nineteen Propositions sent thither to him did declare sufficiâ—â—tly that there was no peace to be expected on his part unless he had made himself a Cypher a thing of no signification in the affairs of State It was desired in the eighth of these Propositions That his Majesty would be pleased to consent to such a Reformation as should be made of the Church Government and Liturgy as both Houses of Parliament should Advise wherein they intended to have Consultation with Divines as was Expressed in their Declaration And that his Majesty would contribute his best assistance to them for the raising of a sufficient maintenance for Preaching Ministers throughout the Kingdom And that his Majesty would be pleased to give his Consent to Laws for taking away of Innovations and Superstitions and of Pluralities and against Scandalous Ministers For satisfaction whereunto he first repeats unto them so much of a former Answer returned to their Petition which accompanied the Remonstrance of the State of the Kingdom as hath already been laid down in the year foregoing and after calls to their Remembrance a material clause in his Message of the 14th of February at such time as he yielded his consent to deprive the Bishops of their Votes in Parliament In which it was declared That his Majesty had Observed great and different troubles to arise in the hearts of his people concerning the Government and Liturgy of the Church and therefore that he was willing to refer the whole consideration to the Wisdom of his Parliament which he desired them to enter into speedily that the present Distractions about the same might be composed that he desired not to be pressed to any single Act on his part till the whole was so digested and settled by both Houses that his Majesty might cleerly see what was fit to be left as well as what was fit to be taken away Of which he addeth that he the more hoped for a good success to the general satisfaction of his People because they seemed in their Proposition to desire but a Reformation and not as had been daily Preached for Necessary in those many Coventicles which for the ninteen Months last past had so swarmed in this Kingdom a Destruction of the Present Discipline and Liturgy that he should most cheerfully give his best assistance for raising a sufficient maintenance for Preaching Ministers in such course as should be most for the encouragement of Piety and Learning that to the Bills they mentioned and the Consultation which they intimated as he knew nothing of the particular matters of the one though he liked the Titles of themselves so neither did he of the manner of the other but by an Informer to whom he gave little credit and wisht no man did more Common Fame he could say nothing till he saw them With which general well studied answer he dismissed that Article These Propositions and the entertaining of so many Petitions by the Houses of Parliament visibly tending to the Abolition of Episcopal Government made it appear most necessary in the Eyes of those who wisht well to it to hasten the publishing of such Petitions as had been presented to the King in behalf thereof and by his Majesty had been Ordered to be published accordingly For what could otherwise be expected but that many such Petitions should be presented to his Majesty and both Houses from several Counties in the Kingdom for the preserving of that Government under which this Church had flourished with Peace and Happiness since the Reformation Amongst which none did plead the cause with greater servency then that which was tendred in the name of the Gentry and Clergy of the Diocess of Canterbury partly out of the esteem they had to their Metropolitan and partly out of the affection which they carried to the cause it self In which Petition it was sâ—ewed That notwithstanding this Kingdom hath by the singular Providence of Almighty God for many years last past happily flourished above all other Nations in the Christian World under the Religion and Government by Law Established yet hath it been of late mâ—st miserably disâ—racted through the sinister Practices of some private persons ill affected to them both By whose means the present Government is disgraced and traduced the houses of God are profaned and in part deâ—aced the Ministers of Christ are contemned and despised the Ornaments and many Vtensils of the Church are abused the Liturgie and Book of Common Prayer depraved and neglected That absolute model of Prayer the Lords Prayer vilified the Sacraments of the Gospel in some places unduly administred in other places omitted Solemn days of Fasâ—ing observed and appointed by private Persons Marriages Illegally Solemnized Burials uncharitably performed And the very Fundamentals of Religion subverted by the Publication of a new Creed and teaching the Abrogation of the Moral Law For which purpose many offensive Sermons are daily Preached and many Impious Pamphlets Printed And in contemning of Authority many do what seemeth good in their own Eyes onely as if there were no King nor Government in this our Israel Whereby God is highly provoked his Sacred Majesty dishonoured the Peace of the Kingdom endangered the Câ—nsciences of the People disquieted the Ministry of Gods word disheartned and the Enemies of the Church imboldned in their enterprise For redress whereof May it please this great and Honourable Council speedily to Command a due observation of the Religion and Government by Law Established in such manner as may seem best to the Piety and Wisdom of his Royall Majesty aâ—d this Honourable Court Your Petitioners as they shall confidently expect a blessing from heaven upon this Church and Kingdom so shall they have this further cause to implore the Divine Assistance upon this Honourable Assembly To this Petition there subscribed no fewer then 24 Knights and Baronets Esquires and Gentlemen
provide them Necessaries before they would budge toward the Tweed And yet all these Temptations were not of such prevalency with the Principal Covenanters as an Assurance which was given them of calling Canterbury their supposed old Enemy to a present Tryal Who having been imprisoned upon their complaint almost three years since seems to have been preserved all this while for no other purpose than for a bait to hook them in for some new Imployments The Walls of some Confederacies like that of Catiline are never thought to be sufficiently well built but when they are cemented with bloud All matters thus resolved on the Covenant agreed on betwixt them and the Scots was solemnly taken by both Houses in St. Margarets Church and generally imposed upon all such as were obnoxious to their power and lived under the command of their Forts and Garrisons the taking whereof conduced as visibly to the destruction of this most reverend and renowned Prelate as to the present subversion of the Government and Liturgy here by Law established In the first branch it was to be covenanted and agreed between the Nations that is to say between the Puritan or Presbyterian Factions in either Kingdom That all endeavours should be used for the preservation of the Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland both in Doctrine Worship Liturgy and Government and for bringing the three Kingdoms to the nearest Conjunction and Uniformity in Religion Confession of Faith Form of Church-Government Directory for Worship and Catechising And in the second That in like manner they endeavour without any respect of Persons the extirpation of Popery Prelacy that is Church-Government by Archbishops and Bishops their Chancellors or Commissaries Deans Deans and Chapters Archdeacons and all other Ecclesiastical Officers depending on the Hierarchy Superstition Heresie Schism Profaneness and what soever should be found contrary to sound Doctrine and the power of Godliness But all this might have been pursued to the end of the Chace without danger to the life of any whether they endeavoured it or not whether their lives might be an hindrance or their deaths give a spur to put on the work And therefore in the fourth place it was also Covenanted That they should with all diligence and faithfulness discover all such as have been or shall be Incendiaries Malignants or evil Instruments by hindring the Reformation of Religion dividing the King from his People or one of the Kingdoms from one another or making any Faction or Parties amongst the People contrary to this League and Covenant that they may be brought to publick trial and receive condign punishment as the degree of their offences shall require or deserve or the supream Judicatories of both Kingdoms respectively or others having power from them for that effect shall judge convenient Which Article seems to have been made to no other purpose but to bring the Archbishop to the Block as the like clause was thrust into the Protestation of the third of May Anno 1641. to make sure work with the Earl of Strafford whom they had then designed to the said sad end And this may be the rather thought because the Covenant was contrived and framed in Scotland where none but his sworn Enemies could be supposed to have had any hand in it and being by them so contrived was swallowed without much enewing by the Houses of Parliament who were not then in a con 〈◊〉 to deny them any thing But by whomsoever it was framed his Majesty saw well enough that it aimed at the subversion of the present Government and the diminution of his Power if not the destruction of his Person the preservation and safety whereof was to be endeavoured no further than in defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdom Which how great or little it might be or what was meant by true Religion and the publick Liberties was left wholly unto their construction who would be sure not to interpret any thing to his best advantage His Majesty therefore looking on it as a dangerous Combination against himself the established Religion and the Laws of this Kingdom for the bringing in of Foreign Forces to subvert them all interdicted all his Subjects from imposing or taking the same as they would answer the contrary at their utmost Perils Which Proclamation bearing date on the ninth of October came out too late to hinder the taking and enjoyning of this Covenant where the restraint thereof might have been most necessary For the Commons were so quick at their work that on Munday September 25. it had been solemnly taken by all the Members of that House and the Assembly of Divines at St. Margarets in Westminster in the same Church within two daies after it was administred with no less solemnity to divers Lords Knights Gentlemen Colonels Officers Souldiers and others residing in and about the City of London a Sermon being preached by Coleman though otherwise a principal Erastian in point of Government to justifie the Piety and Legality of it and finally enjoyned to be taken on the Sunday following in all Churches and Chappels of London within the Lines of Communication by all and every the Inhabitants within the same as afterward by all the Kingdom in convenient time Prosecuted in all places with such cursed rigour that all such who refused to subscribe the same and to lift up their hands to God in testimony that they called him to witness to it were turned both out of house and home as they use to say not suffered to compound for their Goods or Lands till they had submitted thereunto A terrible and wofull time in which men were not suffered to enjoy their Estates without betraying themselves to the Kings displeasure and making shipwrack of a good conscience in the sight of God Upon which ground considering it consisted of six Principal branches it was compared by some to the six knotted whip or the Statute of the six Articles in the time of King Henry viii this Covenant drawing in the Scots and thereby giving an occasion of shedding infinitely much more bloud than those Articles did Certain I am that if all such as died in the War upon that account may not go for Martyrs all such as irrecoverably lost their Estates and Livings for refusal of it may be called Confessors Others with no unhappy curiosity observing the number of the words which make up this Covenant abstracted from the Preface and Conclusion of it found them amounting in the total to 666. neither more nor less which being the number of the Beast in the Revelation pursued with such an open persecution and prosecuted to the loss of so many lives the undoing of so many Families and the subverting of the Government both of Church and State may very justly intitle it to so much of Antichrist as others have endeavoured to confer on the Popes of Rome For if the Pope shewed any thing of the Spirit of Antichrist by bringing Cranmer the first Protestant
years and more since it first was made in all which time we hear no news of that performance for which the Ground could be but Little and the evidence less To the other branches of his Charge consisting in Words or Actions he answered first That the Dissolving of the said Parliaments was no Act of his the business being publickly debated at the Council Table and carried by the Unanimous consent of all then Present that the hard measure which he was complained of to have shown to Corbet of Shropshire he being but a Private Subject could not be called an Act of Treason That the words charged upon him at the Council Table and elswhere might well have been spared That no ill effect did follow on them and that they were innocently though suddenly spoken which he hoped might proceed from a man of such a hasty and Incircumspect humour as himself made so as well by nature as by the multiplicity of vexations which were put upon him without involving him in the crime or guilt of Treason That for his words unto the King touching his being absolved from the Rules of Government they contained only matter of opinion and in opinion delivered at the Council Table where all had Liberty to speak their own sense as he did at time which if it were Erroneous and contrary to the sense of others he hoped that no man should justly be condemned of Treason for shewing himself no wiser then God had made him And thereupon he desired the Lords from his misfortune to provide for their own safety and seriously to consider what a way was chalked out to ruine them both in their Lives and their Estates if for every Opinion given in Council or Words suddenly or hastily spoken they who are born to wield the great affairs of the Kingdom should be Arraigned or Sentenced as Traytors To which he added in the close That there was no likelyhood that he had commited Real Acts of Treason when his adverse Party was content to trifle away so much time about Words Neither was there any Treason in them though they had been fully verified and therefore in that as in all other Articles he reserved a Power for his Counsel to dispute in matter of Law Which when it came to the Dispute not called on by the Commons till October 11. the Question or Point in Issue was Whether any Treason was contained in all or any of the Articles which were charged against him And therein Hearn so plaid his part as the mouth of the rest that after the expectation of more months and the expence of almost as many days as had been spent in the Arraignment of the Earl of Strafford his Enemies in the House of Commons were forced to fall again on a Bill of Attainder as they had been before after so much â—â—ise and ostentation of Wit and Eloquence in the case of that Gentleman For being too far engaged to go back with Honour and yet not having confidence enough to venture him to the Judgment of the House of Peers as in the way of Legal Tryal they seemed to be at such a stand as the Thames is said to be at under London-Bridge betwixt Ebb and Flood In which perplexity some who were fit for any mischief imployed themselves to go from door to door and from man to man to get hands against him and so Petition those to hasten to his Condemnation who must forsooth be forced to their own desires whereof and of the Magistrates standing still and suffering them to proceed without any Check he gave them a Memento in his dying Speech Which Preparations being made they followed it with such double diligence that by the beginning of November most men were great with expectation of a final Sentence Conceived by some That the whole Evidence being transmitted with the Prisoner to the Justices of his Majesties Bench he should have been put over to a Middlesex-Iury but they were only some poor Ignorants which conceived so of it The Leading Members of the House thought of no such matter and to say truth it did concern them highly not to go that way For though there was no question to be made at all but that they could have Impanelled a Iury to have found the Bill yet by a Clause in the Attainder of the Earl of Strafford they had bound the Judges not to declare those Facts for Treason in the time to come for which they had Condemned and Executed that Heroick Peer And therefore they resolved on the same course now which they had found before so prosperous and successful to them to proceed now as then by Bill of Attainder and condemn him by Ordinance in which being Parties Witnesses and Judges too they were assured to speed as they would themselves And though for fashion sake he was brought unto the Commons Bar on the eleventh of that Month not without magnifying the Favour of giving him leave to shew some Reason why the Bill should not pass against him yet was this but a matter of Formality only the Ordinance passing in that House within two days after But yet the Business was not done for the Lords stuck at it some of which having not extinguished all the Sparks of Humanity began to find themselves compassionate of his Condition not knowing how soon it should or might be made their own if once disfavoured by the Grandees of that Potent Faction For the Ordinance having been transmitted to the House of Peers and the House of Peers deliberating somewhat long upon it it was Voted on December 4. That all Books Writings and Evidences which concerned the Tryal should be brought before the Lords in Parliament to the end that they might seriously and distinctly consider of all Particulars amongst themselves as they came before them But meaning to make sure work of it they had in the mean time after no small Evaporations of Heat and Passion prepared an Ordinance which they sent up unto the Lords importing the displacing of them from all those Places of Power and Command which they had in the Army Which being found too weak to hold they fall upon another and a likelier Project which was to bring the Lords to sit in the Commons House where they were sure they should be inconsiderable both for Power and Number And to effect the same with more speed and certainty they had recourse to their old Arts drawing down Watkins with his general muster of Subscriptions and putting a Petition into his hands to be tendred by him to the Houses that is themselves wherein it was required amongst other things That they should vigorously proceed unto the punishment of all Delinquents and that for the more quick dispatch of Publick Businesses of State the Lords would please to Vote and Sit together with the Commons On such uncertain terms such a ticklish Tenure did they then hold their Place and Power in Parliament who so officiously complied with the House of Commons in
Place of Scripture whereupon such Assurance might be truly founded He used some words to this effect That it was the Word of God concerning Christ and his dying for us But then finding that there was like to be no end of the troublesome Gentleman he turned away from him applying himself directly to the Executioner as the gentler and discreeter person Putting some mony into his hand he said unto him without the least distemper or change of countenance Here honest friend God forgive thee and I do and do thy Office upon me with mercy and having given him a sign when the blow should come he kneeled down upon his knees and prayed as followeth viz. Lord I am coming as fast I can I know I must pass thorough the shadow of death before I can come to see thee But it is but Umbra Mortis a meer shadow of death a little darkness upon nature but thou by thy Merits and Passion hast broke thorough the jaws of death the Lord receive my Soul and have mercy upon me and bless this Kingdom with peace and plenty and with brotherly love and charity that there may not be this effusion of Christian blood amongst them for Iesus Christ his sake if it be thy will Then laying his head upon the Block and Praying silently to himself he said aloud Lord receive my Soul which was the Signal given to the Executioner who very dexterously did his Office and took of his head at a blow his Soul ascending on the wings of Angels into Abrahams bosom and leaving his body on the Scaffold to the care of men This blow thus given his life-less body remained a spectacle so unpleasing unto most of them who had desired his death with much heat and passion that many who came with greedy eyes to see him suffer went back with weeping eyes when they saw him dead their own Consciences perhaps bearing witness to them God knows whose did that they had sinned in being guilty of such Innocent blood Of those whom only Curiosity and desire of Novelty brought thither to behold that unusual sight many had not the Patience to attend the Issue but went away assoon as the Speech was ended others returned much altered in the opinion which before they had of him and bettered in their Resolutions toward the King and the Church whose Honour and Religious Purposes they saw so clearly vindicated in his dying but never dying words And for the Rest the most considerable though perhaps the smallest part of that Great Assembly as they came thither with no other intention then to assist him with their Prayers to embalm his body with their tears and to lay up his last Speeches in their hearts and memories so when they had performed those Offices of Christian duty they comforted themselves with this that as his life was honourable so his death was glorious the pains whereof were short and momentary to himself the benefit like to be perpetual unto them and others who were resolved to live and die in the Communion of the Church of England And if the Bodies oâ— us men be capable of any happiness in the Grave he had as great a share therein as he could desire his Body being accompanied to the Earth with great multitudes of People whom love or curiosity or remorse of Conscience had drawn together purposely to perform that Office and decently interred in the Church of Alhallows Barking a Church of his own Patronage and Jurisdiction according to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England In which it may be noted as a thing remarkable That being whilst he lived the greatest Champion of the Common-Prayer-Bookâ—ere â—ere by Law establiâ—â—ed he had the honour being dead to be buried in the form therein prescribed after it had been long disused and almost reprobated in most Churches of London Nor need Posterity take care to provide his Monument he built one for himself whilst he was alive It bâ—eing well observed by Deering one of his most malicious Enemies and he that threw the first stone at him in the beginning of this Parliament that St. Paul's Church will be his perpetual Monument and his own Book against the Iesuite his lasting Epitaph Thus â—ell Laud and St. Paulsâ—ell â—ell with him The yearly Contribution toward whose Repair Anno 1641. when he was plunged into his Troubles fell from the sum of 15000 l. and upward to somewhat less than 1500. and afterwards by degrees to nothing No less than 17138 l. 13 s. 4 d. ob q. which remained in the Chamber of London toward the carrying on of the Work is seised on by an Order of both Houses of Parliament for the beginning of their War against the King that so they might not only encounter him with his own Arms and Ammunition which he had bought with his own Money but with that Money too which he alone had raised by his own Care and Piety Most of the Materials intended for finishing the Work were turned into Money and the rest bestowed on the Parish of St. Gregories for the Rebuilding of that Church And all the Scaffolding of the Tower or Steeple allotted to the payment of Iephson's Regiment who challenged an Arrear of 1746 l. 15 s. 8 d. for their Service in that cruel and unnatural War The Paâ—ement of the Church digged up and sold to the wealthier Citizens for beautifying their Country-Houses The Floor converted into Saw-pits in many places for cutting out such Timber as was turned into Money The Lead torn off in some places also the Timber and Arches of the Roof being thereby exposed to Wind and Weather Part of the Stone-work which supported the Tower or Steeple fallen down and threatning the like Ruine unto all the rest The gallant Portico at the West-end thereof obscured first by 〈◊〉 House looking towards Ludgate and afterward turned into an Exchange for Haberdashers of small Wares Hosiers and such Petit Chapmen And finally the whole Body of it converted to a Stable or Horse-Garrison for the better awing of that City whose Pride and Faction raised the Fire and whose Purse added Fewel to it for the enflaming of the Kingdom Thus Laud fell and the Church fell with him The Liturgy whereof was Voted down about the same time in which the Ordinance was pass'd for his Condemnation The Presbyterian Directory authorised for the Press by Ordinance of March 13. next following Episcopacy Root and Branch which had before been precondemned suppressed by Ordinance in like manner on October 9. 1646. The Lands of all Cathedrals sold to the exposing of those stately and magnificent Fabricks to an inevitable Ruine The Bishops dispossest of their Lands and Rents without the Charity of a small Annual Pension toward their Support The Regular and Conformable Clergy sequestred ejected and turned out of all to the utter undoing of themselves their Wives and Children A wide gap opened for letting in of all Sects and Heresies many of which had been exploded and
Consecration in November 1621. till his return toward London on the fifteenth of August 1622. though the building and consecrating of this Chappel was the work of some following years and that there interveened a business of another nature betwixt the end of the Parliament and the beginning of his Journey The Treaty for a Match with Spain was conceived to be very forwards and the Parliament had ended in disgust for declaring against it which much encreased the Audaciousness of the Papists and the discontents of the Puritan Faction And though the Projects of these last were not yet ripe enough for a present discovery yet so it hapned that one Knight a young Divine of Broadgates in Oxon. now better known by the name of Pembroke Colledge broke out a little before his time into such expressions as plain enough declared the purpose of all the rest For preaching at St. Peters on Palm Sunday in the Afternoon being the fourteenth day of April on those words of the Apostle viz. Let every soul be subject c. Rom. 13.1 he broacht this dangerous Doctrine viz. That the Inferiour Magistrate had a lawful power to order and correct the King if he did amiss For illustration of which Doctrine he used that speech of Trajans unto the Captain of his Guard Accipe hunc gladium quem pro me si bene imperavero distringes sin minus contra me That is to say Receive this Sword which I would have thee use for my defence if I govern well but if I rule the Empire ill to be turned against me For this being called in question by Dr. Pierce one of the Canons of Christ Church being then Vice-Chancellor he was commanded to deliver a Copy of his Sermon which he did accordingly and Letters presently were dispatcht to the Bishop of St. Davids as the only Oxford Bishop then about the King to make his Majesty acquainted with it It was his Majesties pleasure that both the Preacher and the Sermon should be sent to the Court Where being come he was very strictly examined about the Doctrine he had Preached and how he came to fall upon it He laid the fault of all upon some late Divines of forrain Churches by whom he had been so misguided Especially on Pareus a Divine of Heidelberg who in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans had positively delivered all which he had vented in his Sermon even to that very saying of the Emperour Trajan On this acknowledgment it pleased the King of his special goodness to remit the errour of the Preacher considering him as a young man and easily seduced by so grave an Author but then withall he gave such order in the Point That the said Book of Pareus should be publickly burnt not only in both the Universities but also after the end of the Sermon at St. Paul's Cross London on some Sunday following which Sentence was accordingly executed at Oxon. in St. Maries Church-yard on the sixth of Iune in a frequent Assembly of the Vice-chancellor Doctors Procters Heads of Houses Regents Non-Regents and many others whom curiosity or desire of satisfaction did allure unto it The like done at St. Pauls Cross also on Sunday the 23d of Iune next following Mountain then Bishop of London Preaching there upon that occasion The like was done at Cambridge also but the time I know not But yet the business staid not here The University of Oxon. thought themselves concerned to acquit the whole Body from that Censure which the Error of one Member might have drawn upon it and thereupon it was thought fit that the most seditious Maxims and Positions which in that point had been delivered by Pareus should be extracted out of that Book and being so extracted should be presented to the Vice-chancellor and by him referred unto the Judgment of the University Which being done a Convocation was assembled on the 25th day of Iune in which the said Maxims and Positions were by an unanimous consent condemned as false seditious impious and destructive of all Civil Government Nor did the University think they had done enough in looking back on Times past only if they provided not also for the preventing of the like mischiefs for the time to come and thereupon it was declared by the said University First That according to the Canon of Holy Scripture it was not lawful for the Subject to resist his Sovereign by force of Arms or to make War against him either Offensive or Defensive whether it were for the cause of Religion or upon any other Pretence whatsoever Secondly That all Doctors Masters of Arts Batchelors of Law and Batchelors of Physick living within the verge of the University should subscribe to those Censures and Decrees and Thirdly That whosoever did hereafter take any Degree in any Faculty whatsoever should first acknowledge the truth and justice of those Censures by his Subscription to the same and should withal take his Corporal Oath the form of which Oath was then prescribed That he did not only from his heart condemn the said Doctrines of Pareus but that he would neither preach teach or maintain the same or any of them for the future And â—or the better avoiding of the like inconveniences which Knight had run himself upon by that preposterous course of Study which was then generally used in that University Order was given that his Majesties Instructions of the 18th of Iune 1616. should be published in all the Chappels of Colledges and some publick place in every Hall that all young Students in Divinity might take notice of them And this produced by little and little such an alteration that the name of Calvin which before had carried all before it began to lessen by degrees his Reasons more looked upon than his Affirmations and the Doctrines of the Church of England more closely followed than they had been formerly Nor did his Majesty so much neglect his own safety or the peace and happiness of his People as not to take such order in it as might prevent the like false factious and seditious Preachings for the time to come He found by this example that divers young Students by reading of late Writers and ungrounded Divines might and did broach unprofitable unsound seditious and dangerous Doctrines to the scandal of this Church and disquieting of the State and present Government That the falling off of some to Popery and of others to Anabaptistry or to some other kind of separation from the Church could not so rationally be imputed to any other thing than to the lightness affectedness and unprofitableness of that kind of Preaching which had been of late years too much taken up in Court University City and Country That too many Preachers were noted to be soaring up in points of Divinity too deep for the capacities of the people That others ignorantly meddled in Civil matters as well in the private meetings of several Parishes and Corporations as in the Publick of the Kingdom for the venting of
their own distaste or smoothing up of those idle fancies which in this blessed time of so long a Peace doth boil in the brains of an unadvised People That many of their Sermons were full of rude and undecent railings not only against the Doctrines but even against the persons of Papists and Puritans And finally that the People never being instructed in the Catechism and fundamental Grounds of Religion for all these aiery novellisms which they received from such Preachers were but like new Table-books ready to be filled up either with the Manuals and Catechisms of the Popish Priests or the Papers and Pamphlets of Anabaptists Brownists and other Puritans His Majesty thereupon taking the Premises into his Princely Consideration which had been represented to him by sundry grave and reverend Prelates of this Church thought it expedient to cause some certain Limitations and Cautions concerning Preachers and Preaching to be carefully digested and drawn up in Writing Which done so done as Laud appears to have a hand in the doing of it and being very well approved by the King he caused them to be directed to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York by them to be communicated to the Bishops of their several Provinces and by those Bishops to be put in execution in their several Diocesses Which Directions bearing date of the fourth of August 1622. being the 20th year of his Majesties Reign I have thought convenient to subjoin and are these that follow viz. I. That no Preacher under the Degree and Calling of a Bishop or Dean of a Cathedral or Collegiate Church and they upon the Kings days only and set Festivals do take occasion by the Expounding of any Text of Scripture whatsoever to fall into any set course or common place otherwise than by opening the coherence and division of his Text which shall not be comprehended and warranted in essence substance effect or natural inference within some one of the Articles of Religion set forth 1562. or in some one of the Homilies set forth by Authority in the Church of England not only for a help of non-preaching but withal as a pattern as it were for the Preaching Ministers and for their further instruction for the performance thereof that they forthwith read over and peruse diligently the said Book of Articles and the two Books of Homilies II. That no Parson Vicar Curate or Lecturer shall Preach any Sermon or Collation hereafter upon Sundays and Holy-days in the Afternoons in any Cathedral or Parish Church throughout this Kingdom but upon some part of the Catechism or some Text taken â—ut of the Creed or Commandments or the Lords Prayer Funeral Sermons only excepted and that those Preachers be most encouraged and approved of who spend their Afternoons Exercise in the Examination of Children in their Catechisms which is the most ancient and laudable Custom of Teaching in the Church of England III. That no Preacher of what Title soever under the degree of a Bishop or Dean at the least do from henceforth presume to Preach in any popular Auditory the deep Points of Predestination Election Reprobation or of the universality efficacity resistibility or irresistibility of Gods Grace but rather leave those Themes to be handled by Learned Men and that modestly and moderately by Vse and Application rather than by way of positive Doctrine as being fitter for Schools and Vniversities than for simple Auditories IV. That no Preacher of what Title or Denomination soever shall presume from henceforth in any Auditory within this Kingdom to declare limit or bound out by way of positive Doctrine in any Lecture or Sermon the Power Prerogative Iurisdiction Authority or Duty of Sovereign Princes or therein meddle with matters of State and reference between Princes and People than as they are instructed in the Homily of Obedience and in the rest of the Homilies and Articles of Religion set forth as before is mentioned by Publick Authority but rather confine themselves wholly to these two Heads of Faith and Good Life which are all the subject of the ancient Sermons and Homilies V. That no Preacher of what Title or Denomination soever shall causelesly and without any invitation from the Text fall into any bitter Invectives and undecent railing Speeches against the Papists or Puritans but wisely and gravely when they are occasioned thereunto by the Text of Scripture free both the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England from the aspersions of either adversary especially when the Auditory is suspected to be tainted with the one or the other infection VI. Lastly That the Archbishops and Bishops of the Kingdom whom his Majesty hath good cause to blame for their former remisseness be more wary and choice in Licencing of Preachers and Verbal Grants made to any Chancellor Officiall or Commissary to pass Licence in this Kingdom And that all the Lecturers throughout the Kingdom a new body severed from the ancient Clergy of England as being neither Parson Vicar or Curate be licensed henceforward in the Court of Faculties only upon recommendation of the party from the Bishop of the Diocess under his hand and seal with a Fiat from the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury and a confirmation under the Great Seal of England and that such as transgress any of his directions be suspended by the Bishop of the Diocess or in his default by the Lord Archbishop of that Province Ab officio beneficio for a year and a day untill his Majesty by the advice of the next Convocation prescribe for some further punishment No sooner were these Instructions published but strange it was to hear the several descants and discourses which were made upon them How much they were misreported amongst the People and misinterpreted in themselves those very men who saw no just reason to condemn the Action being howsoever sure to misconstrue the end For though they were so discreetly ordered that no good and godly man could otherwise than acknowledge that they tended very much to Edification Yet such Interpretations were put upon them as neither could consist with his Majesties meaning nor the true sense of the Expressions therein used By some it was given out that those Instructions did tend to the restraint of Preaching at the lest as to some necessary and material points by others that they did abate the number of Sermons by which the People were to be instructed in the Christian Faith by all the Preachers of that Party that they did but open a gap for Ignorance and Superstition to break in by degrees upon the People Which coming to his Majesties Ears it brought him under the necessity of making an Apology for himself and his actions in it And to this end having summed up the reasons which induced him to it he required the Archbishop of Canterbury to communicate them to his Brother of York by both to be imparted to their several Suffragans the inferiour Clergy and to all others whosoever whom it might concern which notwithstanding it
of the Kingdom honoured him with the Order of the Garter and made him one of the Lords of his Privy Council so that no greater characters of Power and Favour could be imprinted on a Subject The Office of Lieutenant General he had committed unto the Earl of Strafford Lord Lieutenant of Ireland of whose Fidelity and Courage he could make no question And the Command of the Horse to Edward Lord Conway whose Father had been raised by King Iames from a private condition to be one of his principal Secretaries and a Peer of the Realm Of which three great Commanders it was observed that one had sufficient health but had no will to the business That another had a good will to it but wanted health and that a third had neither the one nor the other And yet as crasie and infirm as the Earl of Strafford found himself he chearfully undertook the charge of the Army in the Generals absâ—nce and signified by Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury that he durst venture upon the peril of his head to drive the Scots out of England but that he did not hold it Counsellable as the case then stood If any other of the Lords had advised the King to try his Fortune in a Battel he doubted not of sending them home in more haste than they came but the Scots had rendred him unfit to make the motion for fear it might be thought that he studied more his own Concernments than he did the Kings For these Invadors finding by whose Counsels his Majesty governed his Affairs resolved to draw them into discredit both with Prince and People And to that end it was declared in a Remonstrance publisht before their taking Arms That their Propositions and Desires so necessary and vital unto that Kingdom could find no access unto the ears of the gracious King by reason of the powerful Diversion of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Deputy of Ireland who strengthned with the high and mighty Faction of Papists near his Majesty did only side in all matters of Temporal and Spiritual affairs making the necessity of their Service to his Majesty to appear in being the only fit Instruments under the pretext of vindicating his Majesties Honour to oppress both the just Liberties of his Free Subjects and the true Reformed Religion in all his Kingdoms Seconding this Remonstrance with another Pamphlet called The Intention of the Army they signified therein to the good People of England that they had no design either to waste their Goods or spoyl their Country but only to become Petitioners to his Sacred Majesty to call a Parliament and to bring the said Archbishop and Lord Lieutenant to their condign Punishments In which those modest men express That as they desired the unworthy Authors of their trouble who had come out from themselves to be tried at home according to their own Laws so they would press no further Process against Canterbury and the Lieutenant of Ireland and the rest of those pernicious Counsellors in England whom they called the Authors of all the miseries of both Kingdoms than what their own Parliament should discern to be their just deserving And that the English might see the better whom they chiefly aimed at a book was published by the name of Laudensium Autocatacrisis or the Canterburians Self-conviction in which the Author of it did endeavour to prove out of the Books Speeches and Writings of the Archbishop himself as also of some Bishops and other learned men who had exercised their Pens in the late disputes That there was a strange design in hand for bringing in Superstition Popery and Arminianism to the subversion of the Gospel and of suppressing the Religion here by Law established But as these Reproaches moved not him so neither did their Remonstrance or any other of their Scribbles distract his Majesties Resolutions untill he found himself assaulted by a Petition from some Lords in the South which threatned more danger at his back than he had cause to fear from the Northern Tempest which blew directly in his teeth Complaint was made in this Petition of the many inconvenicences which had been drawn upon this Kingdom by his Majesties engagings against the Scots as also of the great encrease of Popery the pressing of the present payment of Ship-money the dissolving of former Parliaments Monopolies Innovations and some other grâ—evances amongst which the Canons which were made in the late Convocation could not be omitted For Remedy whereof his Majesty is desired to call a Parliament to bring the Authors of the said pretended grievances to a Legal Trial and to compose the present War without Bloudshed Subscribed by the Earls of Essex Hartford Rutland Bedford Exeter Warwick Moulgrave and Bullingbrooke the Lords Say Mandevil Brooke and Howard presented to the King at York on the third of September And seconded by another from the City of London to the same effect His Majesty being thus between two Milstones could find no better way to extricate himself out of these perplexities than to call the great Council of his Peers to whom at their first meeting on the 24 of the same month he signified his purpose to hold a Parliament in London on the third of November and by their Counsel entertained a Treaty with those of Scotland who building on the confidence which they had in some Lords of England had petitioned for it According unto which Advice a Commission is directed to eight Earls and as many Barons of the English Nation seven of which had subscribed the former Petition enabling them to treat with the Scots Commissioners to hear their Grievances and Demands and to report the same to his Majesty and the Lords of his Council These points being gained which the Puritan Faction in both Kingdoms had chiefly aimed at the Scots were insolent enough in their Proposals Requiring freedom of Commerce Reparation of their former Losses and most especially the maintenance of their Army at the charge of the English without which no Cessation would be harkned to Satisfaction being given them in their last Demand and good Assurances for the two first they decline York as being unsafe for their Commissioners and procure Rippon to be named for the place of the Treaty where the Lord Lieutenant was of less influence than he was at York and where being further from the King they might shuffle the Cards and play the Game to their best contentment The rest of October from the end of the first week of it when they excepted against York was drilled on in requiring that some persons of quality intrusted by the Scottish Nation might have more Offices than they had about his Majesty and the Queen and in the Court of the Prince That a Declaration might be made for naturalizing and settling the Capacities and mutual Priviledges of the Subjects in both Kingdoms but chiefly that there might be an Unity and Uniformity in Church-Government as a special means for conserving
of the Peace between the two Nations And thus they entertained the time till the beginning of the Parliament which removed the Treaty from Rippon to London where the Scots were sure of more Friends and of warmer Quarters than the Northern Counties could afford them In the mean time it may be asked what became all this while oâ— the Irish Army consisting of 8000 Foot and 1000 Horse which had been raised with so much zeal by the Earl of Strafford at the beginning of the Spring and by the power whereof kept ever since in constant pay and continual exercise his Majesty might have reduced the Scots to their due obedience as was declared by the Earl at the Council Table on May 6. being the next day after the dissolving of the former Parliament Which Army if it had been put over into Cumberland to which from the Port of Carickfergus in Ireland is but a short and easie passage they might have got upon the Back of the Scots and caught the wretched People in a pretty Pitfall so that having the English Army before them and the Irish behind them they could not but be ground to powder as between two Milstones But this design if it were ever thought of was never put in execution so as that Army was dissolved without doing any thing in order to his Majesties Service the Commons in the following Parliament not thinking themselves or their affairs in any security as long as those Forces were maintained and held together It may be askt in the next place why the Parliament called at such a time and on such an occasion that is to say the over-running of the Northern parts of the Kingdom by a Scottish Army should be held at Westminster when York where the King was then in Person lay nearer to the danger and the Scene of Action and to the place of Treaty betwixt the Nations These Reasons were sufficient to have moved the King to hold this Parliament at York and not at Westminster had he known nothing of the disaffections and engagements of the neighbouring City as he knew too much And he had some good Presidents too which might have added no small weight to the consideration For when King Edward was busie in the Conquest of Wales he called his Parliament to Acton Burnel being in the Marches of that Country and when he turned his Forces to the Conquest of Scotland he called his Parliament to Carlisle if my memory fall me not being on the borders of that Kingdom Had the King made choice of the like Place for this present Parliament which he did afterward endeavour to alter when it was too late he had undoubtedly prevented all those inconveniencies or rather mischiefs which the Pride Purse Faction and Tumultuousness of the Londoners did afterwards inforce upon him And finally It might be asked What might move his Majesty to transfer the Treaty from Rippon to London where the Commissioners of the Scots were Complemented Feasted and presented by the wanton Citizens Their Lodgings more frequented for Prayers and Sermons than the houses of Foreign Embassadors had ever been for hearing Mass by any of the English Papists By means whereof they had the greater opportunity to enflame that City and make it capable of any impression which they thought fit to imprint upon it exprest not long after by their going down in such huge multitudes after Alderman Pennington to present a Petition to the Parliament subscribed by some Thousands of hands against the Government of Bishops here by Law estalisâ—t as afterwards in no less number to clamour at the Parliament doors for Justice on the Earl of Strafford which were the points most aimed at by the Scottish Covenanters To which no Answer can be given but that all these things were so disposed of by the supreme and over-ruling power of the Heavenly Providence contrary to all reason of State and Civil Prudence But to proceed the third of November drawing on when the Parliament was to take beginning A Letter was writ to the Archbishop of Canterbury advertising that the Parliament of the twentieth year of King Henry viii which began in the Fall of Cardinal Wolsey continued in the Diminution of the Power and Priviledges of the Clergy and ended in the dissolution of the Abbeys and Religious Houses was begun on the third day of November and therefore that for good-luck sake he would move the King to Respite the first sitting of it for a day or two longer But the Archbishop not harkning to this Advertisement the Parliament had its first sitting at the time appointed Which Parliament as it began in the Fall and Ruine of the Archbishop himself and was continued in the total Dissipation of the remaining Rites and Priviledges of the English Clergy so did it not end till it had subverted the Episcopal Government dissolved as much as in them was all Capitular Bodies and left the Cathedrals of this Land not presently ruined I confess but without means to keep them up for the time to come The day appointed being come his Majesty declined the accustomed way of riding in a Magnificent Pomp from Whitehall to the Church of Westminster and making his entry there at the great Western Gate but rather chose to pass thither privately by water attended by such of the Lords as could accommodate themselves with convenient Barges Entring the Church at the Little door which openeth toward the East he was received by the Sub-Dean and Prebendaries under a Canopy of State and so conducted to the place where he heard the Sermon the performance of which work was commended by his Grace of Canterbury to the Bishop of Oxon. and by him learnedly discharged The Sermon being done his Majesty attended by the Peers and Prelates returned the same way to Westminster Hall and from thence went to the Parliament House where causing the Commons to be called before him he acquainted both Houses with the Insolencies committed by the Scots who not content to embroyle their own Country had invaded this requiring their timely assistance to drive the Rebels out of the Kingdom and casting â—imself upon the good affections of his English Subjects The Commons were not more willing to hear that his Majesty was resolved to cast himself wholly on their good affections than many zealous Patriots seemed to be troubled at it knowing how ill it sorts with Kings when they have no way to subsist or carry on their great Designs but by casting themselves wholly on the love of the People These on the other side were not better pleased with hearing his Majesty call the Scots by the name of Rebels whom he had too long courted by the name of his Scottish Subjects than the Prevailing Members in the House of Commons were offended at it the name of Rebels rendring them uncapable of those many Favours which were designed them by that House And the displeasure went so high that his Majesty finding into what condition he had cast