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
Honour from them both And therefore briefly in this place to speak of Hamilton and his Proceedings in the weighty Charge committed to him in which he hath been generally suspected to betray his Master we will fetch the Story somewhat higher that we may see what ends he aimed at for himself and what enclined him rather to foment than quench the Flames which had been kindled in that Kingdom Know therefore That the Hamiltonian Family derives it self from one Hamilton an Englishman who went to try what Fortunes he could find in Scotland Neither himself nor his Posterity of any great note till Iames iii. bearing a great affection to Sir Iames Hamilton married him to one of his Sisters whom he had forcibly taken from the Lord Boyd her former Husband From this unlawful Marriage descended another Iames the Grandchild of this as impious and â—dulterous in his second Marriage as his Grandmother had been before For having married a Wife of one of the Noble Houses of Scotland he put her shamefully away and took into his Bed a Niece of Cardinal Beton's who then swayed all things in that Kingdom Of this last Marriage came Iohn Earl of Arran Created by King Iames vi the first Marquis of Hamilton the Father of Iohn and Grandfather of Iames Marquis of Hamilton of whom we now speak This man considering with himself that he was descended from a Daughter of King Iames ii but without taking notice of any intervenient Flaws which occurred in the Pedigree conceived by 〈◊〉 and little That a Crown would look as lovely upon his Head as on the Heads of any which descended from a Daughter of Iames v. To give some life unto his Fancies he found the Great Men amongst the Scots in high discontentments about the Revocation of Church-Lands which the King then busily intended The Popular Party in England no less discontented by the Dissolving of three Parliaments one after another and the Puritans in both by the great Power and Credit which some Bishops had attained unto in either Kingdom In which conjuncture it was not hard for him to conceive That he might make unto himself a strong Party in That without fear of any opposition to be made from This. And so â—ar had his hopes gone with him when he obtained the Conduct of an Army intended by his Majesty for assisting of the King of Sweden in the Wars of Germany An Army for the most part raised in Scotland and most of the Commanders of that Nation also whom he had so obliged unto him by his Arts and Flatteries that a Health was openly begun by David Ramsey a boisterous Ruffian of that Court to King Iames the Seventh And so much of the Design was discovered by him unto Donald Maukie Baron of Ree than being in the Marquisses Camp that the Loyal Gentleman thought himself bound in duty to make it known unto the King Ramsey denying the whole matter and the Lords having no proof thereof as in such secret Practices it could hardly be more than a confident asseveration and the Engagement of his Honour the King thought good to refer the Controversie to the Earl of Lindsey whom he made Lord High-Constable to that end and purpose Many days were spent accordingly in pursuance of it But when most men expected that the matter would be tried by Battel as had been accustomed in such cases the Business was hushed up at Court the Lord Ree dismissed to his Employment in the Wars and contrary to the mind of all good men the Marquis did not only continue in the Kings great Favour but Ramsey was permitted to hold the Place of Gentleman of the Privy-Chamber which had been formerly procured for him As for the Army of Scots consisting of 7000. if my memory fail not transported into Germany in the Summer before Anno 1631. they mouldred away by little and little without acting any thing the King of Sweden being then in a prosperous condition and not desiring the Scots should carry away any part of the Spoil and Honour which he doubted not of acquiring to his own Nation in the course of the War This put the Marquis upon new Counsels and in the course of these new Counsels he was not only to â—oment those Animosities which had been raised in that Nation against the King but to remove all those Impediments which might lye in the way betwixt him and his affected Greatness Two men there were whom he more feared than all the rest both of the House of Graham and both descended from a Son of King Robert the Second and that too by a clearer Descent than the Hamiltons could pretend from the Daughter of King Iames ii The first was William Earl of Menteith descended from an Heir-general of David Earl of Stratherne one of the younger Sons of King Robert ii as before was said A man oâ— sound Abilities and approved Affections and therefore by the King made President of the Council in Scotland In which Office he behaved himself and stood so stoutly in behalf of the King his Master upon all occasions that nothing could be done for Advance of Hamiltons Designs till he was removed from that Place In order whereunto it was put into his head by some of that Faction that he should sue unto the King to be Created Earl of Stratherne as the first and most honourable Title which belonged to his House That his Merits were so great as to assure him not to meet with a denial and that the King could do no less than to give him some nominal Reward for his real Services On these Suggestions he repaired to the Court of England 1632. where without any great difficulty he obtained his Suit and waited on the King the most part of the Summer-Progress no man being so openly honoured and courted by the Scottish Nation as he seemed to be But no sooner was he gone for Scotland but the Hamiltonians terrified the King with the Dangers which he had run into by that Creation whereby he had revived in that proud and ambitious Person the Rights which his Ancestors pretended to the Crown of Scotland That the King could not chuse but see how generally the Scots flock'd about him after his Creation when he was at the Court and would do so much more when he was in Scotland And finally That the proud man already had so far declared himself as to give it out That the King held the Crown of him Hereupon a Commission was speedily posted into Scotland in which those of Hamiltons Faction made the greatest number to inquire into his Life and Actions and to consider of the Inconveniencies which might redound unto the King by his affecting this new Title On the Return whereof the poor Gentleman is removed from his Office from being one of the Privy Council and not only deprived of the Title of the Earl of Stratherne but of that also of Menteith which for a long time had remained in his Ancestors And
for him in such a place and amongst people so enraged notwithstanding his great clemency shewed unto them in the Pacification His Majesty was now at leisure to repent the loss of those Advantages which God had put into his hands He found the Scots so unprovided not having above 3000. compleat Arms amongst them that he might have scattered them like the dust before the wind at the very first onset By making this agreement with them he put them into such a stock of Reputation that within the compass of that year they furnished themselves out of Holland with Cannon Arms and Ammunition upon days of Payment without disbursing any money which he knew they had not He came unto the borders with a gallant Army which might assure him under God of a very cheap and easie victory an Army governed by Colonels and other Officers of approved Valour and mingled with the choicest of the English Gentry who stood as much upon his honour as upon their own This Army he disbanded wiâ—â—out doing any thing which might give satisfaction to the world himsâ—lf or them Had he retired it only to a further distance he had done as much as he was bound to by the Capitulations But he disbanded it before he had seen the least performance on their parts of the points agreed on before he had seen the issue and success of the two Conventions in which he did expect a settling of his peace and happiness which had he done he had in all reasonable probabilities preserved his honour in the eye of Foraign Nations secured himself from any danger from that people and crusht those Practices at home which afterwards undermined his Peace and destroyed his Glories But doing it in this form and manner without effecting any thing which he seemed to Arm for he animated the Scots to commit new Insolencies the Dutch to affront him in his own Shores by fighting and destroying the Spanish Navy lying under his protection and which was worst of all gave no small discontentment to the English Gentry Who having with great charge engaged themselves in this Expedition out of hope of getting honour to the King their Country and themselves by their faithful service were suddenly dismissed not only without the honour which they aimed at but without any acknowledgment of their Love and Loyalty A matter so unpleasing to them that few of them appeared 〈◊〉 the next years Army many of them turned against him in the following troubles the greatest part looking on his Successes with a careless eye as unconcerned in his Affairs whether good or bad In this condition of Affairs he returned toward London in the end of Iuly leaving the Scots to play their own Game as they listed having first nominated Traquaire as his High Commissioner for managing both the Assembly and the following Parliament In the first meeting of the two they acted over all the parts they had plaid at Glasco to the utter abolition of Episcopacy and the destruction of all those which adhered unto it their Actings in it being confirmed in his name by the High Commission In the Parliament they altered the old form of chusing the Lords of the Articles erected a third Estate out of Lairds and Barons instead of the Bishops invaded the Soveraign power of Coynage Resolved upon an Act for abrogating all former Statutes concerning the Judicature of the Exchequer for making of Proxies and governing the Estates of Wards and finally conceived the King to be much in their debt by yielding to a prorogation till a further time The news whereof reduced the King to such a stand that he was forced to send for Wentworth out of Ireland where he had acted things in settling the Estate of that broken Kingdom beyond expectation or belief This charged on Canterbury as a project and crime of his and both together branded for it in a Speech made by the Lord Faulkland in the first year of the Long Parliament where speaking first of the Bishops generally he tells the Speaker That they had both kindled and blown the fire in both Nations and more particularly that they had both sent and maintained that book of which the Author hath no doubt long since wished with Nero Vtinam nescissem Literas And of which more than one Kingdom hath cause to wish that he who writ it had rather burned a Library though of the value of Ptolemies And then he adds We shall see then saith he who have been the first and principal cause of the breach I will not say of but since the Pacification at Berwick We shall find them to have been the almost sole Abettors of my Lord of Strafford whilst he was practicing upon another Kingdom that manner of Government which he intended to settle in this where he committed so many so mighty and so manifest enormities as the like have not been committed by any Governour in any Government since Veires left Sicily And after they had called him over from being Deputy of Ireland to be in manner Deputy of England all things here being governed by a Iuntillo and that Iuntillo governed by him to have assisted him in the giving of such Counsels and the pursuing of such courses as it is a hard and measuring cast whether they were more unwise more unjust or more unfortunate and which had infallibly been our destruction if by the grace of God their share had not been as small in the subtilty of Serpents as in the innocence of Doves But these were only the Evaporations of some Discontents which that noble Orator had contracted of which more elsewhere Wentworth being called unto this Service was presently made Lord Leiutenant of Ireland and not long after with great solemnity Created Earl of Strafford in the County of York As Lord Lieutenant he had Power to appoint a Deputy that so he might the better attend the Service here without any prejudice to that Kingdom which Office he committed to Wansford a Yorkshire Gentleman and an especial Confident of his whom he had took along with him into Ireland at his first going thither And because great Counsels are carried with most faith and secrecy when they are entrusted but to few his Majesty was pleased to commit the Conduct of the Scottish Businesses to a Iuncto of three that is to say the Archbishop of Canterbury the new Lord Lieutenant and the Marquis of Hamilton which last the other two knew not how to trust and therefore communicated no more of their Counsels to him than such as they cared or feared not to make known to others By these three joyned in Consultations it was conceived expedient to move his Majesty to try his fortune once more in calling a Parliament and in the mean time to command some of the Principal Covenanters to attend his Pleasure at the Court and render an account of their late Proceedings In order to the first they had no sooner signified what they thought fit for his Majesties Service but
it was chearfully entertained by the Lords of the Council who joined together with them in the Proposition promising his Majesty to assist him in extraordinary ways if the Parliament should fail him in it as they after did Upon these Terms his Majesty yielded to the Motion on the fifth of December causing an Intimation to be publickly made of his Intent to hold a Parliament on the 13th of April then next following An Intimation which the Londoners received with great signs of joy and so did many in the Country but such withal as gave no small matter of disturbance unto many others who could not think the calling of a Parliament in that point of time to be safe or seasonable The last Parliament being dissolved in a Rupture the Closets of some Members searched many of them imprisoned and some fined it was not to be thought but that they would come thither with revengeful Spirits And should a breach happen betwixt them and the King and the Parliament be Dissolved upon it as it after was the breach would prove irreparable as it after did Besides which fear it was presumed that the interval of four Months time would give the discontented Party opportunity to unite themselves to practice on the Shires and Burroughs to elect such Members as they should recommend unto them and finally not only to consult but to conclude on such Particulars as they inteâ—â—ed to insist upon when they were Assembled In which Resâ—â—â—â— the calling a Parliament at that time and with so long warning beforehand was conceived unsafe And if it was unsafe it was morâ— unseasonable Parliaments had now long been discontinued the People lived happily without them and few took thought who should see the next And which is more the Neighbouring Kings and States beheld the King with greater Veneration than they had done formerly as one that could stand on his own Legs and had raised up himself to so great Power both by Sea and Land without such discontents and brabbles as his Parliaments gave him So that to call a Parliament was â—eared to be the likeliest way to make his Majesty seem less in estimation both at home and abroad the eyes of men being distracted by so many objects But whatsoever others thought it was thought by Wentworth that he could manage a Parliament well enough to the Kings Advantage especially by setting them such a Lesson as should make them all ashamed of not writing after such a Copy Two ends they had in advising the Intimation of the Parliament to be given so long before the Sitting First That the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland might in the mean time hold a Parliament in that Kingdom which he did accordingly and governed the Affair so well that an Army of 8000 Horse and Foot some of our Writers say 10000 was speedily raised and Money granted by the Parliament to keep them in pay and furnish them with Ammunition Arms and all other Necessaries Secondly That by the Reputation of a following Parliament he might be the better enabled to borrow Money for the carrying on of that War if the Parliament should chance to fail of doing their Duty wherein the Lords performed their parts in drawing in great Sums of Money upon that account For causing a List to be made of most of the Persons of Ability which had relation to the Courts of Judicature either Ecclesiastical or Civil of such as held Offices of the Crown as attained unto his Majesties Service or otherwise were thought to be well affected to the present Cause and had not formerly contributed toward it they called them to the Council-Table where they endeavoured by the prevailing Rhetorick of Power and Favour to perswade them to a bountiful Contribution or a chearful Loan according to the Sums proportioned and requested of them In which they did proceed so well that money came flowing in apace enough to put the King into a condition of making new Levies of Men both for Horse and Foot Listing them under their Commanders and putting them into a Posture for the War approaching And that they might be sure to speed the better by the encouragement of a good Example the Lord Lieutenant subscribed for a Loan of 20000 l. the other Lords with the same Loyalty and Affection proportioning their Engagements to their Abilities and thereby giving Law to most of the Noblemen in all parts of the Kingdom Nor was the Queen wanting for her part to advance the Service For knowing how great a share she had in his Majesties Fortune she employed her Secretary Winter Mountague Digby and others of her Confidents of that Religion to negotiate with the rest of their party for being Assistant to his Majesty in so just a quarrel In which design she found such a liberal correspondence from the Roman Catholicks as shewed them to be somewhat ambitious of being accounted amongst the most Loyal and best affected of his Majesties Subjects These preparations being Resolved on and in some part made it was thought convenient that his Majesty should take the opportunity of the coming of some Commissioners from the Scots to call for an account of their late proceedings According unto which advice his Majesty appointed a Select Committee from the rest of the Council to bring those Commissioners to a reckoning to hear what they could say for themselves and the rest of their fellows and to make report thereof to his Majesty The Commissioners were the Earl of Dumfermelling the Lord London Douglas and Barkley both of inferiour rank but of like Authority Of which the Speakers part was performed by London A confident bold man of a Peâ—antical expressâ—on but one that loved to hear himself above all men living Being Commanded to attend the Committee at the time appointed they râ—nted high touching the Independency of the Crown of Scotland and did not think themselves obliged to Treat with any but his Majesty only His Majesties vouchsaâ—eâ—ng his presence at the said Committee London begins with a defence of their proceedings both in the General Assembly and the late Parliament held at Edenborough by his Majesties Order Alledged that nothing was done in them contrary to the Laws of the Land and the Precedents of former times and finally besought his Majesty to ratifie and confirm the Acts and Results of both Commissions They could shew none to qualifie them in the nature of Publick Agents Nor had they any power to Oblige their party in the performance of any thing which might give his Majesty full satisfaction for the time to come whatsoever satisfaction he was able to give them in debating the business His Majesty endeavoured not by reason only but by all fair and gentle means to let them see the unreasonableness of their demands the legality of their proceedings and the danger which would fall upon them if they continued obstinate in their former courses But London governed all the rest who being of a fiery nature in himself and a dependent
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
these St. John Baptist had his head danced off by a lewd woman and St. Cyprian Archbishop of Carthage submitted his head to a persecuting Sword Many examples great and 〈◊〉 and they teach me patience for I hope my cause in heaven will 〈◊〉 of another dye than the colour that is put upon it here And some comfort it is to me not only that I go the way of these great men in their several Generations but also that my charge as foul as it is made 〈◊〉 like that of the Jews against St. Paul Acts 25.3 for he was accused for the Law and the Temple i. e. Religion and like that of St. Steven Acts 6.14 for breaking the Ordinances which Moses gave i. e. Law and Religion the holy place and the Temple v. 13. But you will then say Do I then compare my self with the Integrity of St. Paul and St. Steven No far be that from me I only raise a comfort to my self that these great Saints and Servants of God were laid at 〈◊〉 their time as I am now And it is memorable that St. Paul who helped on this accusation against St. Steven did after fall under the very same himself Yea but here is a great clamour that I would have brought in Popery I shall answer that more fully by and by In the mean time you knâ—w what the Pharisees said against Christ himself If we let him alone all men will believe in him ET VENIENT ROMANI and the Romans will come and take away both our Place and Nation Here was a causeless cry against Christ that the Romans would come and see how just the Iudgment was they Crucified Christ for fear least the Romans should come and his death was it which brought in the Romans upon them God punishing them with that which they most feared And I pray God this clamour of Venient Romani of which 〈…〉 no cause help not to bring them in For the Pope never had such an harvest in England since the Reformation as he hath now upon the Sects and Divisions that are amongst us In the mean time by Honour and dishonour by good report and evil report as a Deceiver and yet true am I passing through this world 2 Cor. 6.8 Some Particulars also I think it not amiss to speak of And first This I shall be bold to speak of the King our Gracious Soveraign He hath been much traduced also for bringing in of Popery but on my conscience of which I shall give God a very present account I know him to be as free from this Charge as any man living and I hold him to be as sound a Protestant according to the Religion by Law Established as any man in this Kingdom And that he will venture his life as far and as freely for it And I think I do or should know both his affection to Religion and his grounds for it as fully as any man in England The second Particular is concerning this great and Populous City which God bless Here hath been of late a Fashion taken up to gather Hands and then go to the great Court of this Kingdom the Parliament and clamour for Iustice as if that great and wise Court before whom the Causes come which are unknown to many could not or would not do Iustice but at their Appointment A way which may endanger many an Innocent man and pluck his bloud upon their own heads and perhaps upon the Cities also and this hath been lately practiced against my self the Magistrates standing still and suffering them openly to proceed from Parish to Parish without any check God forgive the Setters of this with all my heart I beg it but many well-meaning People are caught by it In St. Stevens case when nothing else would serve they stirred up the People against him and Herod went the same way when he had killed St James yet he would not venture on St. Peter till he found how the other pleased the People But take heed of having your hands full of bloud for there is a time best known to himself when God above other sins makes Inquisition for bloud and when that Inquisition is on foot the Psalmist tells us That God remembers that 's not all He remembers and forgets not the complaint of the poor that is whose bloud is shed by oppression ver 9. Take heed of this It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God but then especially when he is making Inquisition for bloud And with my prayers to avert it I do heartily desire this City to remember the Prophesie that is expressed Jer. 26.15 The third Particular is the poor Church of England It hath flourished and been a shelter to other Neighbouring Churches when storms have driven upon them But alas now it is in a storm it self and God only knows whether or how it shall get out and which is worse thâ—â— the storm from without it is become like an Oak cleft to shivers with wedges made out of its own body and at every cleft Prophaneness and Irreligion is entring in while as Prosper speaks in his second book De vitae contemptu cap. 4. Men that introduce profaneness are cloaked over with the name Religionis Imaginariae of Imaginary Religion for we have lost the substance and dwell too much in opinion and that Church which all the Iesuites Machinations could not ruine is fallen into danger by her own The last Particular for I am not willing to be too long is my self I was born and baptized in the Bosome of the Church of England establâ—â—hed by Law in that Profession I have ever since lived and In that I come nâ—w to die This is no time to dissemble with God least of all in 〈◊〉 of Religion and therefore I desire it may be remembred I â—ave alwaies lived in the Protestant Religion established in England and â— that I come now to dye What clamours and slanders I have endured 〈…〉 to keep an Vniformity in the external Service of God accordinâ— tâ— the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church all men know and I 〈◊〉 abundantly felt Now at last I am accused of High Treason in Parliament a Crime which my soul ever abhorred This Treason was charged to consist of two parts An endeavour to subvert the Laws of the Land and a like endeaâ—our to overthrow the true Protestant Religion established by Law Besides my Answers to the several Charges I protested my innocency in â—oth Houses It was said Prisoners Protestations at the Bar must 〈…〉 taken I can bring no witness of my heart and the inten 〈◊〉 thereof therefore I must come to my Protestation not at the Bar â—ut my Protestation of this hour and instant of my death in which I 〈◊〉 all men will be such charitable Christians as not to think I would 〈◊〉 and dissemble being instantly to give God an account for the truth of 〈…〉 therefore here in the presence of God and
to Faith that good Works are necessary to salvation and not so only but that they are efficienter necessaria as was maintained publickly in the Schools of Cambridge though it was much carpt at by some men that did not rightly and distinctly understand the term And secondly It may be said without any wrong to the Free Grace and Merits of Almighty God that a reward is due for the Works of Righteousness proceeding from a lively Faith in a man regenerate not that the Church ascribeth any merit to the works of man which may deserve eternal life either ex congruo or condigno as the School-men phrase it for Deus non coronat in nobis merita nostra sed dona sua as the Father hath it No reward is due unto good Works ratione operis in reference to the work it self but ratione pacti acceptationis though Bellarmine be otherwise minded in respect of Gods merciful acceptance and his most gracious promise to reward the same It was his grace and goodness only which moved him to encourage our imperfect and weak obedience with the promise of eternal life yet having made the promise he became our debtor Non aliquid debendo sed omnia promittendo Deus se facit debitorem as St. Augustine tells us And most agreeable it is to his heavenly justice not to be wanting to his promise Such a Reward as this for the works of Righteousness as the Scriptures frequently do mention both in the Old Testament and New Gen. 47. Psalm 19.11 Mat. 5.12 and 10.41 42. Mark 9.41 Apoc. 22.11 so is the same defended in the Church of England And this appears first by the Athanasian Creed incorporated into the body of our publick Liturgy as a part thereof In the close of which it is affirmed That at Christs coming unto Judgemenr all men shall rise again with their bodies and give an account of their own works that they which have done good shall go into life everlasting and they that have done evil into everlasting fire And secondly It appears as plainly by the Collect for the 25. Sunday after Trinity where the Church called on the Lord To stir up the wills of his faithful people that they plenteously bringing forth the fruits of good works may of him be plenteously rewarded through Iesus Christ In which we have not only a reward for the fruit of good works but a plentiful reward into the bargain according to the quality of the work it self and the acceptableness of the person in the sight of God 31. Next look we on the Doctrine of Predestination and the points depending thereupon which have given matter of division to the Christian Church in all times and ages dividing between the general current of the Fathers till St. Augustines time and the learned men which followed him and his authority between the Iesuites and Franciscans on the one side and the Dominicans on the other in the Church of Rome between the moderate and rigid Lutherans in the Church Protestant between the Remonstrants and the Contra-Remonstrants in the Schools of Calvin and finally between the Sublapsarians and the Supra-Lapsarians amongst the Contra-Remonstrants themselves Of these the Sublapsarian Calvinists for of the dotages of the other I shall take no notice the Rigid Lutherans and the Dominican Friars pretend St. Augustine for their Patron and on the other side the Remonstrants commonly nick-named Arminians The Moderate or Melancthonian Lutherans together with the Iesuites and Franciscans appeal unto the general current of the ancient Fathers who lived and flourished ante mota certamina Pelagiana before the starting up of the Pelagian Controversies And to this general current of the ancient Fathers the Church of England most enclines teaching according to their Doctrine that God from all eternity intending to demonstrate his power and goodness designed the Creation of the World the making of man after his own Image and leaving him so made in a perfect liberty to do or not to do what he was commanded and that fore-knowing also from all eternity that man abusing this liberty would plunge himself and his posterity into a gulph of miseries he graciously resolved to provide them such a Saviour who should redeem them from their sins to elect all those to life eternal who by true Faith laid hold upon him leaving the rest in the same state in which he found them for their incredulity It is reported of Agilmond the second King of the Lombards that riding by a Fish-Pond he saw seven young Children sprawling in it whom their unnatural Mothers as Paulus Diaconus conceived had thrown into it not long before Amazed whereat he put his Hunting Spear amongst them and stirred them gently up and down which one of them laying hold of was drawn to Land called Lamistus from the word Lama which in the Language of that people signifies a Fish-Pond trained up in that Kings Court and finally made his Successor in the Kingdom Granting that Agilmond being fore-warned in a Vision that he should finde such Children sprawling for life in the midst of that Pond might thereupon take a resolution within himself to put his Hunting Spear amongst them and that which of them soever should lay hold upon it should be gently drawn out of the water adopted for his Son and made Heir of all his Kingdom no humane Story could afford us the like parallel case to Gods proceeding in the great work of Predestination to eternal life according to the Doctrine of the Church of England 32. Now that such was the Doctrine of the first Reformers may be made evident by the Definition of Predestination Predestination unto life saith the 17. Article is the everlasting purpose of God whereby before the foundations of the world were laid he hath constantly declared by his Council secret to us to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankinde and to bring them by Christ to everlasting Salvation In which Definition there are these things to be observed First That Predestination doth pre-suppose a curse or a state of Damnation in which all mankinde was presented to the sight of God Secondly That it is an act of his from everlasting because from everlasting he foresaw that misery into which wretched man would fall Thirdly That he founded it and resolved for it in the Man and Mediator Christ Jesus both for the purpose and performance Fourthly That it was of some special ones alone Elect called forth and reserved in Christ and not generally extended unto all mankinde Fifthly That being thus elected in Christ they shall be brought by Christ to everlasting salvation And sixthly That this Council is secret unto us for though there be revealed to us some hopeful signes of our Election and Predestination unto life yet the certainty thereof is a secret hidden in God and in this life unknown to us Nothing obscure in this Definition but these words Whom he hath chosen in Christ
Protestant Religion here by Law established than to be so perswaded of him he had not else preferred him to the service of Bishop Neile or recommended him to the Colledge as the fittest man to succeed him in the Presidents place when he himself was at the point of his preferment to the See of Rochester So also had the whole Body of the University when they conferred upon him his Degrees in Divinity which certainly they had never done if either they had believed him to have been a Papist or at the least so Popishly affected as the Faction made him Neither could he have taken those Degrees had it been so with him without a most perfidious dissimulation before God and Man because in taking those Degrees he must both take the Oath of Supremacy and subscribe to the three Articles contained in the 36 Canon of the year 1603. In the first of which he was to have abjured the Popes Authority and in the next to have declared his approbation of the Doctrine Government and Forms of Worship established in the Church of England Which may sufficiently serve to over-balance the Depositions of Sir Nath. Brent and Doctor Featly the first of which deposed at his Tryal That whilst the Archbishop remained in Oxon he was generally reputed to be Popishly affected the other Not only that the Archbishop was generally reported to be Popish when he lived in Oxon but that both he and others conceived so of him But both these men were Abbot's Creatures and had received their Offices and Preferments from him I need say no more For had he either been a Papist or so strongly biassed on that side what should have hindred him from making an open Declaration of it or stop him from a reconciliation with the Church of Rome His Fellowship was not so considerable but that he might presume of a larger Maintenance beyond the Seas Nor was he of such common parts but that he might have looked for a better welcom and far more civil usage there than he found at home Preferments in the Church he had none at the present nor any strong presumptions of it for the time to come which might be a temptation to him to continue here against the clear light of his Understanding And this may be a further Argument not only of his unfeigned sincerity but of his constancy and stedfastness in the Religion here established that he kept his station that notwithstanding all those clamours under which he suffered he was resolved to ride out the storm and neither to desert the Barque in which he sailed nor run her upon any of the Roman Shores In this of a far better Temper than Tertullian was though as much provok'd of whom it is reported by Beatus Rhenamus That at first he only seemed to favour Montanus or at the least not to be displeased with his proceedings But afterwards being continually tormented by the tongues and pens of the Roman Clergy he fell off from the obedience of the Church and became at last a downright Montanist All which together make it plain that it was not his design to desert the Church but to preserve her rather from being deserted to vindicate her by degrees from those Innovations which by long tract of time and the cunning practises of some men had been thrust upon her And being once resolved on this the blustring winds which so raged against him did rather fix him at the root than either shake his resolution or force him to desist from his purpose in it And therefore it was well resolved by Sir Edw. Dering though his greatest enemy That he was always one and the same man that beginning with him at Oxon. and so going on to Canterbury he was unmoved and unchanged that he never complied with the times but kept his own stand until the times came up to him as they after did Such was the man and such the purpose of the man whom his good friends in Oxon. out of pure zeal no doubt we must take it so had declared a Papist During these Agitations and Concussions in the Vniversity there hapned an accident at Wansteed in the County of Essex which made as great a noise as his being a Papist but such a noise as might have freed him from that Accusation if considered rightly In the year 1605. he had been made Chaplain to Charles Lord Mountjoy Earl of Devonshire a man in great favour with King Iames for his fortunate Victory at Kinsale in Ireland by which he reduced that Realm to the obedience of this Crown broke the whole Forces of the Rebells and brought the Earl of Tir-owen a Prisoner into England with him For which great Services he was by King Iames made Lord Lieutenant of that Kingdom and one of the Lords of his Privy Council created Earl of Devonshire and one of the Knights of the most Noble Order of the Garter This Gentleman being a younger Brother of William Lord Mountjoy and known only by the name of Sir Charles Blunt while his Brother lived had bore a strong and dear affection to the Lady Penelope Daughter of Walter Earl of Essex a Lady in whom lodged all attractive Graces of Beauty Wit and sweetness of Behaviour which might render her the absolute Mistress of all Eyes and Hearts And she so far reciprocated with him in the like affection being a compleat and gallant man that some assurances past between them of a future Marriage But her friends looking on him as a younger Brother considerable only in his depending at the Court chose rather to dispose her in Marriage to Robert Lord Rich a man of an independent Fortune and a known Estate but otherwise of an uncourtly disposition unsociable austere and of no very agreeable conversation to her Against this Blunt had nothing to plead in Bar the promises which passed between them being made in private no Witnesses to attest unto it and therefore not amounting to a pre-Contract in due form of Law But long she had not lived in the Bed of Rich when the old flames of her affection unto Blunt began again to kindle in her and if the Sonet in the Arcadia A Neighbour mine not long ago there was c. be not too generally misconstrued she made her Husband the sole instrument to acquaint him with it But whether it were so or not certain it is that having first had their private meetings they afterwards converst more openly and familiarly with one another than might stand with honour unto either especially when by the death of his elder Brother the Title of Lord Mountjoy and the Estate remaining to it had accrued unto him As if the alteration of his Fortune could either lessen the offence or suppress the fame Finding her at his coming back from the Wars of Ireland to be free from Rich legally freed by a Divorce and not a voluntary separation only a toro mensa as they call it he thought himself obliged
not engaged upon either side might succeed in their places But notwithstanding all this care the Faction still held up against him the younger fry inclining to the same side which had been taken by their Tutors But whiles these things were in agitation there hapned a great alteration in the Church of England by the death of the most Reverend Archbishop Bancroft who died on the second of November 1610. and with whom died the Vniformity of the Church of England A man he was of eminent parts and of a most undaunted spirit one who well knew his work and did it When Chaplain only to the Lord Chancellor Hatton he piec'd himself with Doctor Whitgift not long after his first coming to the See of Canterbury to whom he proved a great support in gaining the Lord Chancellor for him by whose assistance he was enabled to hold out against the over-ruling Power of the Earl of Leicester the Patron-General of the Faction In the year 1588. he Preached a Sermon at St. Paul's Cross and therein made an open Declaration of those manifold Dangers which the prevalency of that Faction would bring upon the Church and State if they might be suffered which blow he followed in a Book entituled Dangerous Positions and Proceedings published and practised within this Island of Britain under pretence of Reformation and for the Presbyterial Discipline And in that Book he made such a perfect discovery of their Plots and Practises and so anatomized them in every part that he made them odious unto those who before had been their greatest Patrons In the year 1593. he published another Treatise entituled A Survey of the Pretended holy Discipline in which he so dissected the whole Body of Calvin's Presbyterial Platform shewing the incoherencies of it in it self and the inconsistencies thereof with Monarchical Government that he took off the edge of many and those Great ones too who had not only seemed to like it but had longed for it The Plot was so laid down by Whitgift that at the same time there should come out two other Books the one written by Doctor Thomas Bilson Warden of the Colledge neer Winton for proof of the Antiquity and perpetual Government of the Church by Bishops the other by Doctor Richard Cosens a right Learned Civilian in justification of the Proceedings in the Ecclesiastical Courts By which four Books the Puritan Faction was so muzled that they were not able to bark in a long time after Nor do they want their several and just Rewards for such good performances Bilson being first made Bishop of Worcester and not long after Bishop of Winton Bancroft advanced to the See of London and Doctor Cosens Vicar-general and Dean of the Arches within few years after being consecrated Bishop of London on the eighth of May 1597. he kept such a watchfull eye over it and held so strict a hand upon it that from a receptactle and retreat of the Grandees of the Puritan party it became almost as free from Faction as any other in the Kingdom And knowing how much the Peace of this Church did depend upon it he managed a secret Corespondency with King Iames in Scotland insinuating unto him the necessity of conforming the Churches of both Kingdoms in Government and Forms of Worship and laying down a plot for restoring Episcopacy to that Kirk without noise or trouble Which counsel being advisedly followed by King Iames before his coming into England was afterwards so well pursued though not without some violent strugling of the Presbyterians of that Kingdom that on the 21. day of October in the year 1609. the designed Bishops of Glascow Brechen and Gallo-Way received Episcopal Consecration in the Chappel of London-house by the hands of Doctor George Abbot then Bishop of London Doctor Lancelot Andrews Bishop of Ely Doctor Iames Montague Bishop of Bath and Wells and Doctor Richard Neile then Bishop of Rochester Bancroft himself forbearing to lay hands upon them for the avoiding of all scruples amongst the Scots as if he pretended any Jurisdiction or Authority over them In the mean time Anno 1603. he carried a chief hand in the Conference at Hampton Court and had the sole management of the Convocation of the same year also in which he passed that excellent body of Canons and Constitutions Ecclesiastical to serve for a perpetual standing Rule to the Church of England Succeeding Whitgift in the See of Canterbury Anno 1604. he resolved to put the Canons into execution and press'd it with so stout a courage that few had confidence enough to stand out against him Some of them did and those he either depriv'd or silenc'd and thereby terrified the rest to an open Conformity They saw too plainly that they must not dally with his patience as they did with Whitgifts and that he was resolved to break them if they would not bow And they did wisely in so bowing for who could stand against a man of such a spirit armed with Authority having the Law on his side and the King to friend who had declared publickly in the Conference at Hampton Court That if they would not conform he would either hurry them out of the Kingdom or else do worse In the year 1608. he was chosen Chancellor at Oxon. and questionless would have set all things right in that University if Sickness and the stroke of Death had not prevented his intendments But die he must and being dead there was a Consultation amongst some of the Bishops and other Great men of the Court whom to commend unto King Iames for his Successor in that See They knew that Mountague and Abbot would be venturing at it but they had not confidence enough in either of them both of them being extremely popular and such as would ingratiate themselves with the Puritan Faction how dearly soever the Church paid for it And thereupon it was resolved to fix on Andrews for the man a man as one says very well of him of Primitive Antiquity in whom was to be found whatever is desirable in a Bishop even to admiration to whom they found the King to be well affected for taking up the Bucklers for him against Cardinal Bellarmine The Motion was no sooner made but it was embraced and they departed from the King with as good assurance as if the business had been done and Andrews fully setled in the Throne of Canterbury In confidence whereof some of them retired to their Country Houses and others lessened their accustomed diligence about the King and thereby gave an opportunity to the Earl of Dunbar a powerful Minister of State to put in for Abbot who had attended him in some Negotiations which he had with the Scots and he put in so powerfully in his behalf that at last he carried it and had the Kings Hand to the passing of the publick Instruments before the other Bishops ever heard of the Plot But when they heard of it there was no Remedy but Patience but it was
Church of England had a great stock at that time to be driven in Spain and many of the Romish Factors were desirous to be trading in it No sooner was the Princes Train of Lords and Gentlemen come to the City of Madrid but the King of Spain assigned a day for his Reception A Reception so Magnificent so full of State and Royal Pomp that it redounded infinitely to the honour of the Spanish Court and the satisfaction of the Prince Never was King of Spain on the day of his inauguration received into that City with a more general concourse of all sorts of people and greater signs of Joy and Gallantry then the Prince was conducted through it to the Palace Royal. In which his Quarters being assigned him there wanted no allurements on their parts to win him to a fair esteem of their Religion and to put some high value also on their Court and Nation Nor was the Prince wanting for his part in all fit compliances by which he might both gain on them and preserve himself for by his Courtly Garb he won so much on the affections of the Lady Infanta and by his Grace and circumspect behaviour got so much ground upon that King and his Council that the Match went forward in good earnest A dispensation for the Marriage was procured from Gregory the fifteenth then sitting in the See of Rome The Articles of the Marriage with all the circumstances thereof were agreed upon and solemnly sworn to by both Kings Nothing remained to bring the whole business to a joyfull issue but the Consummation But before that could be obtained the Prince must try his fortunes in an harder Conflict than any he had learnt in the Schools of Love The change of his Religion was much hoped for by the Court of Spain at his first coming thither To perfect which he was plied from time to time with many perswasive Arguments by many persons of great Honour about that King And many of the most learned Priests and Jesuites made their Addresses to him with such Rhetorical Orations with such insinuating Artifices and subtle Practises as if they had a purpose rather to conquer him by kindness than by disputation Nor stop they there but dedicated many Books unto him to gain him fairly to their Party invited him to behold their solemn Processions to captivate his outward senses and carried him to the most Religious places famous for their magnificent Fabricks and pretended Miracles In which conjuncture of designs it is not to be thought but that the Pope bestirred himself in gaining to his Church a Prince of such parts and greatness For first he writes unto the Bishop of Conchen Inquisitor general of Spain not to be wanting to the opportunity which God had put into his hands The next day being the twentieth of April he addressed his lines unto the Prince extolling the piety of his Predecessors their Zeal unto the Catholick Church and to the head thereof the Pope inviting him by all the blandishments of Art to put himself upon the following of their brave examples Never had Prince a harder game to play than Prince Charles had now He found himself under the Power of the King of Spain and knew that the whole business did depend on the Popes dispensation with whom if he complied not in some handsome way his expectation might be frustrate and all the fruits of that long Treaty would be suddenly blasted He therefore writes unto the Pope in such general terms as seemed to give his Holiness some assurances of him but being reduced unto particulars signified nothing else but some civill complements mixt with some promises of his endeavours to make up the breaches in the Church and restore Christendom to an happy and desirable peace Which notwithstanding was after reckoned amongst his crimes by such as rather would not then did not know the necessity which lay upon him of keeping at that time a plausible correspondence with the Catholick party But these Temptations and Allurements these Artifices and Insinuations prevailed so little with the Prince that he still kept his stand and was found impregnable carrying himself with such a prudent Moderation in these Encounters that he came off alwaies without Envy but not without Glory And that it might appear on what grounds he stood it was thought fit to let them see that he professed no other Religion than what was agreeable to the Rules of Antiquity and not much abhorrent from the Forms then used in the Church Rome And to this end by the prudent care of the Lord Keeper Williams the English Liturgie was translated into Spanish so many Copies of the book then Printed being sent into Spain as gave great satisfaction both to the Court and Clergy The work performed by a converted Dominican who was gratified for his pains therein by a good Prebend and a Benefice as he well deserved And this I must needs say was very seasonably done For till that time the Spaniards had been made believe by their Priests and Jesuites that when the English had cast off the Pope they had cast off all Religion also That from thenceforth they became meer Atheists and that the name of God was never used amongst them but with a purpose to expose it to profanation An Argument whereof may be the extreme squeamishness of the Constable of Castile sent into England in the beginning of the Reign of King Iames to swear the peace between both Kings Who understanding that the business was to be performed in the Chappel where some Anthems were to be sung desired that whatsoever was sung Gods name might not be used in it and that being forborn he was content they should sing what they listed And when the Earl of Nottingham attended by many Gentlemen of worth and quality went into Spain to take the like Oath of the Catholick King it was reported by his followers at their coming back how much it was commiserated by the Vulgar Spaniards that so many goodly persons should be trained up in no other Religion than to worship the Devil But let us leave the Prince and return for England where the King had as hard a game to play For having left such a Pawn in Spain he was in a manner bound to his good behaviour and of necessity to gratifie the Popish Party in this Kingdom with more than ordinary Favours He knew no Marriage could be made without the Popes Dispensation and that the Popes Dispensation could not be obtained without indulging many graces to his Catholick Subjects To smooth his way therefore to the point desired he addresseth several Letters to the Pope and Cardinals in which he gives him the title of most holy Father and imploys Gage as his Agent in the Court of Rome to attend the business At home he dischargeth all such Priests and Iesuites as had been formerly imprisoned inhibiting all Processes and Superseding all proceedings against Recusants and in a word suspends
the Churches committed to our charge all Canonical Priviledges and due Law and Iustice and that you would protect and defend us as every good King in his Kingdom ought to be a Protector and Defender of the Bishops and the Churches under their Government The King answereth With a willing and devout heart I promisâ— and grant my pardon and that I will preserve and maintain to you and the Churches commâ—â—ted tâ—â—â—ur charge all Canonical Priviledges and due Law and Iustice and that I will be your Protector and Defender to my power by the Assistance of God as every good King ought in his Kingdom in right to protect and deâ—end the Bishops and Churches under theiâ— Government The King ariseth and is leaâ— to the Communion Table where he makes a soleâ—n Oath in â—ight of all the People to observe the Premises and laying his Hand upon the Book saith The things which I have before promised I shall perform and keep So help me Gâ—â— and the Contents of this Book Such was the Coronation-Oath accustomably taken by the Kings of England Which notwithstanding it was objected by the Lords and Commons in the time of the Long Parliament 〈…〉 the same which ought to have been taken by him And for proof thereof an antiquated Oath was found and published in a Remonstrance of theirs bearing date the twentieth of May 1642. To which his Majesty made this Answer That the Oath which he took at his Coronation was warranted and enjoyned by the Customs of his Predecessors and that the Ceremony of their and his taking of it they might find in the Records of the Exchequer And this it is c. Now in performing the Solemnities of the Coronation the Abbot anciently and for more than one hundred years last past the Deans of Westminster had a special place To them belonged the Custody of the old Regalia that is to say the Crown Sword Scepter Spurs c. of King Edward Sirnamed the Confessor kept by them in a secret place of Westminster Abbey not easily acceâ—â—able to any but such as know the mystery of it never brought forth but at the Coronation of a King or his going to Parliament Williams the late Lord Keeper was at this time Dean But being under the Kings displeasure was commanded to forbear his attendance at the Coronation and to depute one of the Prebends in his place This put him into some dispute within himself He had no mind to nominate Laud being then one of the Prebendaries of that Church because he lookt upon him as his Corrival and Supplanter in the Dukes good Grace and to have named otâ—er of a lower order there being a Bishop in the number would have subjected him to some discourse and misconstruction He therefore very wisely sent unto his Majesty the names degrees and dignities of all the Prebends leaving it unto him alone to make the Election who thereupon without any Hesitancy or deliberation deputed Laud unto the Service Laud being thus nominated and deputed prepared all things ready for that great Solemnity And finding the Old Crucifix among the Regalia he caused it to be placed on the Altar as in former times The Coronation being ended his Majesty going in his Robes to Westminster Hall did there deliver them to Laud representing in that Pomp the Dean of Westminster together with the Crown Scepter and the Sword called Cortena to be laid up with the rest of the Regalia in their old repository which he receiving from the King returned into the Abbey Church offered solemnly on the Altar in his Majesties name as by his place he was to do and so laid them up Two things there were remarkable in this Coronation which seemed to have something in them of Presage Senhouse who had been once his Chaplain when Prince of Wales and was now Bishop of Carlile had the honour to preach upon the day of that great Solemnity An eloquent man he was reputed and one that could very well express a passion but he had chosen such a Text as was more proper for a Funeral than a Coronation his Text being this viz. I will give thee a Crown of life Apoc. 2.10 and was rather thought to put the new King in mind of his Death than his duty in Government and to have been his Funeral Sermon when he was alive as if he were to have none when he was to be buried It was observed also that his Majesty on that day was cloathed in White contrary to the Custom of his Predecessors who were on that day clad in Purple And this he did not out of any necessity for want of Purple Velvet enough to make a Suite for he had many yards of it in his outward Garment but at his own choice only to declare that Virgin Purity with which he came to be espoused unto his Kingdom White as we know is the colour of the Saints who are represented to us in White Robes by St. Iohn in the Revelation and Purple is the Imperial and Regal colour so proper heretofore unto Kings and Emperours that many of the Constantinopolitan Emperours were called Porphyrogenites because at their first coming into the world they were wrapt in Purple And this some looked on also as an ill Presage that the King laying aside his Purple the Robe of Majesty should cloath himself in White the Robe of innocence as if thereby it were fore-signified that he should devest himself of that Regal Majesty which might and would have kept him safe from affront and scorn to rely wholly on the innocence of a vertuous life which did expose him finally to calamitous ruine No sooner were the Pomps of the Coronation ended but the Second Parliament began at the opening whereof on Munday the sixt of February our Bishop of St. Davids preacht before his Majesty the Lords c. in the Abbey Church He was appointed to have preached in the beginning of the former Parliament on Saturday the eighteenth of Iune but that turn being otherwise supplied he preached the same Sermon the next day before his Majesty at Whitehall his Text then Psal. 75.2 3. When I shall receive the Congregation I will judge according unto right c. But now he chose for the Theam or Subject of his discourse the 3 4 5 verses of the 112 Psalm viz. Ierusalem is like a City that is at unity in it self c. In which considering Ierusalem as a Type of the Church and State he first beholds it as a type of the State or Civil Government Where he considered That Ordo Politicus the wise ordering of the people in Concord and Vnity was simply the strongest Wall of a State But break Vnity once and farewell all strength And therefore disjoynted Factions in a State when they work upon Division are Publica irae divinae incendia the publick kindlings of Gods Anger and they burn down all before them And God seldom suffers these to fire a State till himself be heated first
any business to bring about amongst the people she used to tune the Pulpits as her saying was that is to say to have some Preachers in and about London and other great Auditories in the Kingdom ready at command to cry up her design as well in their publick Sermons as their private Conferences Which course was now thought fit to be followed in preparing the people toward a dutifull compliance to these his Majesties desires And to that end Laud received a Command from his Majesty by the Duke of Buckingham to reduce certain instructions into Form partly Political partly Ecclesiastical in the Cause of the King of Denmark not long before beaten and now much distressed by Count Tilly to be published in all Parishes within the Realm To this he chearfully conformed and brought the said Instructions to the Duke within two daies after being the sixteenth of September And having read them over first to the Duke and after to the King himself he received from both a very favourable acceptation On the next day they were communicated to the Lords of the Council who approved them also By whose advice he sent them to the Archbishop of Canterbury requiring him by his Letters bearing date September 29. to see them published and dispersed in the several Diocesses of his Province The like Letters he also writ to the Archbishop of York And they accordingly gave order to their several and respective Suffragans To see them made known to the worthy Preachers and Ministers in their Diocess and so far as their Lordships might in their own persons to put these things in execution and to call upon the Clergy which was under them in their Preachings and private Conferences to stir up all sorts of people to express their Zeal to God their Duty to the King and their Love unto their Country and one to another that all good and Christian-like course might be taken for the preservation of true Religion both in this Land and through all Christendom Now the tenour of the said Instructions was as followeth Most Reverend Father in God right trusty and right well-beloved Counsellour We greet you well WE have observed that the Church and the State are so nearly united and knit together that though they may seem two bodies yet indeed in some relation they may be accounted but as one inasmuch as they both are made up of the same men which are differenced only in relation to Spiritual or Civil ends This neerness makes the Church call in the help of the State to succour and support her whensoever she is pressed beyond her strength And the same nearness makes the State call in for the service of the Church both to teach that duty which her Members know not and to exhort them to and encourage them in that duty which they know It is not long since we ordered the State to serve the Church and by a timely Proclamation settled the peace of it And now the State looks for the like assistance from the Church that she and all her Ministers may serve God and us by preaching peace and unity at home that it may be the better able to resist Forraign Force uniting and multiplying against it And to the end that they to whom we have committed the Government of the Church under us may be the better able to dispose of the present occasions we have with the Advice of our Council thought fit to send unto you these Instructions following to be sent by you to the Bishops of your Province and such others whom it may concern and by them and all their Officers directed to all the Ministers throughout the several Diocesses that according to these punctually they may instruct and exhort the people to serve God and us and labour by their Prayers to divert the dangers which hang over us The danger in which we are at this time is great It is encreased by the late blow given our good Vncle the King of Denmark who is the chief Person in those parts that opposed the spreading Forces of Spain If he cannot subsist there is little or nothing left to hinder the House of Austria from being Lord and Master of Germany And that is a large and mighty Territory and such as should it be gotten would make an open way for Spain to do what they pleased in all the West part of Christendom For besides the great strength which Germany once possessed would bring to them which are two strong already you are to consider first how it enables them by Land in that it will joyn all or the most part of the Spaniards now distracted Territories and be a means for him safely and speedily to draw down Forces against any other Kingdom that shall stand in his way Nor can it be thought the Low Countries can hold out longer against him if he once become Lord of the upper parts And secondly You are to weigh how it will advantage him by Sea and make him strong against us in our particular which is of easie apprehension to all men And besides if he once get Germany he will be able though he had no Gold from India to supply the necessity of those Wars and to hinder all Trade and Traffick of the greatest Staple Commodities of this Kingdom Cloth and Wool and so make them of little or no value You are to know therefore that to prevent this is the present care of the King and State and there is no probable way left but by sending Forces and other Supplies to the said King of Denmark our dear Vncle to enable him to keep the Field that our Enemies be not Masters of all on the sudden You are further to take notice how both we and the whole State stand bound in Honour and Conscience to supply the present necessity of the King of Denmark For this quarrel is more nearly ours the recovery of the Ancient Inheritance of our dear Sister and her Children The King of Denmark stands not so near in bloud unto her as we do Yet for her and our sakes that brave and valiant King hath adventured into the field and in that ingagement hath not only hazarded his Person but as things go now it may turn to some danger to his own Kingdom and Posterity should he not receive aide and succour from us without delay Which should it happen as God forbid will be one of the greatest dishonours that ever this Kingdom was stained withall Nor is danger and dishonour all the mischief that is like to follow this disaster For if it be not presently relieved the Cause of Religion is not only likely to suffer by it in some one part as it hath already in a fearful manner in the Palatinate but in all places where it hath gotten any footing So that if we supply not presently our Allies and Confederates in this case it is like to prove the extirpation of true Religion and the re-planting of Romish Superstition in all
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
another by means whereof it must needs follow that as they are now a Church within a Church so in short time they might grow to be a Common-wealth in the middest of a Kingdom Fourthly That these bodies standing thus divided from the Church and State are planted for the most part in such Haven Towns as lay fittest for France and the Low-Countries which may be a shrewd temptation to them to take such advantages to themselves or to make use thereof for others as occasion offereth Fifthly That the example is of ill consequence in Church-affairs to the Subjects of England many being confirmed by it in their stubborn waies and inconformities but in London chiefly Sixthly That neither French nor Dutch Church be longer tolerated in this Kingdom than the Subjects of this Kingdom be suffered to enjoy the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England in those several parts beyond the Seas where they have their abode The dangers and inconveniencies being thus laid down he proceeds to the Remedies And first he doth advise That the number of them in all places of the Kingdom be fully known to the end a better Judgment might be made of the way by which they are to be reduced to the rest of the Kingdom Secondly That a Command be issued to this purpose from the State it self and that it be avowedly and not perfunctorily taken in all places where they do reside and a Certificate returned of the men of most credit and wealth amongst them Thirdly That if they will continue as a distinct body both from State and Church they should pay all duties double as strangers used to do in this Realm and not be capable of such immunities as the Natives have as long as they continue so divided from them Fourthly That when it shall be thought convenient to reduce them to the same condition with the rest of the Subjects they should then be warned in an Ecclesiastical way excepting such as be new Commers to repair diligently to their Parish Churches and to conform themselves to their Prayers and Sacraments which if they should refuse to do then to proceed against them by Excommunication and so unto the Writ de Excommunicato capiendo for a terror to others Fifthly and lastly That if this course prevaile not with them a Declaration to be made by the State to this effect That if they will be as natives and take the benefit of Subjects they must conform themselves to the Laws of the Kingdom as well Ecclesiastical as Temporal That being the likeliest way to make them capable of the inconveniencies they should run unto by their refusal and perverseness Such were the considerations offered by him to the Lords of the Council for advancing the peace and honour of this Church both at home and abroad But long it will not be before we shall behold him sitting in the Chair of Canterbury acting his own counsels bringing these Conceptions to the birth and putting the design into execution of which more hereafter These matters standing in this state we must at last look toward Scotland for the receiving of which Crown his Majesty and the Court prepare the beginning of this year But besides the Pomp and Splendor of a Coronation which the people with great importunity had long prest upon him there were some other Loadstones which made the Needle of his Compass point so much to the North. Concerning which the Reader may be pleased to know that at the first Alteration of Religion in the Kirk of Scotland the Scots petitioning for aide from Queen Elizabeth to expell the French obliged themselves by the subscription of their hands to embrace the Liturgie Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England According whereunto an Ordinance was made by their Reformers that in all Parishes of that Realm the Common-Prayer should be read weekly on Sundaies and other Festival daies with the Lessons of the Old and New Testament conform to the order of the Book of Common-Prayer of the Church of England it being well known that for divers years after they had no other order for Common-Prayer but that which they received from hence But as Presbytery prevailed so the Liturgie sell the fancy of Extemporary Prayers growing up so fast in the minority of King Iames that it soon thrust all Publick Forms out of use and credit In which confused estate it stood till the coming of that King to the Crown of England where he much pleased himself with the Sobriety and Piety of the publick Liturgie This made him cast his eyes more sadly on the Kirk of Scotland where for want of some such publick Forms of Prayers the Ministers prayed so ignorantly that it was a shame to all Religion to have God spoke to in that barbarous manner and sometimes so seditiously that their Prayers were plain Libells against Authority or stuft with lies made up of all the false reports in the Kingdom For remedy whereof after he had restored and settled the Episcopal Government he procured the General Assembly of that Kirk held at Aberdeen Anno 1616. to pass an Act for Authorising some of the Bishops and divers others to compile a Publick Liturgie for the use of that Kirk which being presented unto the King and by him approved should be universally received over all the Kingdom To prepare the way unto them his Majesty gave order the next Spring after That the English Liturgie should be Officiated day by day in his Chappel-Royal in the City of Edenborough and in the year following 1618. obtained the five Articles before-mentioned as so many chief Ingredients for the Common-Prayer-Book to be passed at Perth by which Encouragements the Commissioners which were appointed to compile the Book went so luckily forwards that it was not long before they brought it to an end and sent it to King Iames by Archbishop Spotswood who not only carefully perused every Passage in it but caused it to be revised by some of the Bishops of that Kingdom which were then in England in whose Judgments he reposed especial confidence Fitted according to his mind he sent it back again to those from whose hands he received it to be by them commended to the use of the Church which undoubtedly had took effect if the Breach with Spain and the Death of that King which followed not long after had not unfortunately interrupted the Success of the business In this condition of Affairs King Charles succeeded in the Crown ingaged in a War with the King of Spain and standing upon no good terms with his People at home so that the business of the Liturgie seemed to be laid asleep if not quite extinct But in the year 1629. having agreed his differences with the Crown of France and being in a good way towards an Accommodation with the King of Spain the Scottish Bishops were again remembred of their Duty in it who dispatch'd Maxwell then one of the Preachers of Edenborough to the Court
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
it was not easie to Transcribe them insomuch that few of the Presbyters themselves could tell which of them were authentical which not So unsafely and uncertainly kept that they knew not where to address themselves for consulting with them That by reducing those numerous Act and those not known unto themselves to such a paucity of Canons published and exposed to the publick view no man should be insnared by ignorance or have just reason to complain of their multiplicity And finally That not one in all that Kingdom did either live under the Obedience of the Acts of those General Assemblies or did know what they were or where to find them Upon which grounds the Book of Canons being drawn up and presented to him he gave a Warrant under his Hand to the Archbishop of Canterbury requiring him together with the Bishop of London to peruse the same to see that they were well fitted to the Church-Government and as near as conveniently might be to the Canons of the Church oâ— England giving them and either of them full power to alter any thing in the said Canons as they found most fitting Which being done as he commanded and the Book made ready for the Press he pass'd his Royal Confirmation of it under the Great Seal oâ— the Kingdom in this manner following CHARLES REX WE 〈◊〉 of Our Royal Care for the Maintenance of the present Estate and Government of the Church of Scotland have diligently and with great content considered all the Canons and Constitutions after following and finding the same such as We are perswaded will be profitable not only to our whole Clergy but to the whole Church of that our Kingdom if so they be well observed Have for Vs Our Heirs and Lawful Successors of Our especial Grace certain Knowledâ—â— â—nd meer â—otion given and by these presents do give Our 〈◊〉 Assâ—â—t â—nto all the said Canons Orders and Constitutions 〈◊〉 all and every thing in them contained as they are afterwards set 〈◊〉 And further We do not only by Our Prerogative Royal and Supreme 〈◊〉 in Causes Ecclesiastical Ratifie and Confirm by these Our Letters Patâ—nts the said Canons Orders and Constitutions â—nd all â—nd every thing in them contained But likewise We command by 〈◊〉 â—uthority Royal and by these Letters Patents the same to be diligently observed and executed by all Our Loving Subjects of that Our Kingdom both within the Province of St. Andrews and â—lascow in all points wherein they do or may concern every or any of them according to this Our Will and Pleasure hereby expressed and declared And for the better observation of them We straightly Charge and Command all Our Archbishops Bishops and all others thaâ— exercise any Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction within that Our Realm to see the same Canons Orders and Constitutions to be in all points duly observed not sparing to execute the Penalties in them severally mentioned upon any that shall willingly break or neglect to observe the same as they tender the Honour of God the Peace of the Church the Tranquility of the Kingdom and their Service and Duty to Vs their King and Sovereign Given at Our Mannor of Greenwich 23 May 1635. These Canons when they came abroad were presently quarrelled and disclaimed by the Scottish Presbyters Quarrelled in reference to the subject matter comprehended in them Disclaimed because imposed upon them without their own approbation and consent The points most quarrelled at were these 1. That whosoever should affirm That the Kings Majesty had not the same Authority in Causes Ecclesiastical that the Godly Kings had among the Jews or the Christian Emperors in the Primitive Church or impugn in any part his Royal Supremacy in Causes Ecclesiastical was to incur the Censure of Excommunication 2. The like Censure to be inflicted on those who should affirm That the Worship contained in the Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments though at the making of these Canons there was no such Book of Common Prayer recommended to them or That the Government of the Church by Archbishops and Bishops or the form of Making and Consecrating Archbishops and Bishops c. did contain any thing repugnant to the Scriptures or was corrupt superstitious or unlawful in the Service and Worship of God 3. That the Ordinations were restrained to four times in the year that is the first Weeks of March June September and December 4. That every Ecclesiastical Person at his Admission should take the Oath of Supremacy according to the form required by Parliament and the like Oath for avoiding Symonie required in the Book of Consecration 5. That every Presbyter shall either by himself or by another Person lawfully called read or cause Divine Service to be done according to the form of the Book of that Common Prayer before all Sermons and that he should Officiate by the said Book of Common Prayer in all the Offices Parts and Rubricks of it when as yet none of them had seen the said Book or Liturgie 6. That no Preacher should impugn the Doctrine delivered by another in the same Church or any neer adjoining to it without leave from the Bishop which they conceived to be the way to pin their whole Religion on the Bishops Sleeves 7. That no Presbyter should hereafter become Surety or Cautioner for any Person whosoever in Civil Bonds and Contracts under pain of Suspension 8. That whatsoever remained of the Bread and Wine prepared for the Communion should be distributed to the poorer sort which receive that day to be eaten and drunken of them before they go out of the Church 9. That Presbyters are enjoined to Minister the Sacrament of Baptism in private Houses and upon every day alike in case of infirmity and that the People were required not to receive the Sacrament of the Lords Supper but upon their knees 10. That in all Sentences of Separation a Thoro Mensa there shall be a Caution inserted and given accordingly That the Persons so separated should live continently and chastly and not contract Marriage with any Person during each others life which seemed to put the innocent Party into as bad a condition as the guilty contrary to the Judgment of the Reformed Churches 11. That no private Meeting be kept by Presbyters or any other Persons whatsoever for expounding Scripture or for consulting upon matters Ecclesiastical Such matters to be handled only in the Lawful Synods held by Bishops 12. That under pain of Excommunication no Presbyter or Layman jointly or severally make Rules Orders or Constitutions in Causes Ecclesiastical or to add or detract from any Rubricks or Articles or other things now established without the Authority of the King or his Successors 13. That National or General Assemblies were to be called only by the Kings Authority That the Decrees thereof should bind as well the Absent as the Present in Matters Ecclesiastical and That it should not be lawful for the Bishops themselves in such Assemblies or otherwise to
This being a matter easily to be proved they were required to make up their number according to their first Foundation by King Henry vi But against this the Fellows pleaded That out of an hatred to their Founder a great part of their Lands had been taken from them by King Edward iv conferred by him upon the Abby of Westminster and the Church of Windsor and by them enjoyed until this day and that they hoped his Grace would not tye them to maintain the whole number of their Fellows with little more than half their Lands To which so reasonable a desire upon full proof made of the Suggestion his Grace did readily consent and left them in the same state in which he found them The noise of these Proceedings in England in the Iune and Iuly of this year being quickly posted to the Scots became a principal Incentive of those Combustions which not long after inflamed that Kingdom For it could be no hard matter for the Presbyterians there to possess the People with the sense of the like smart Sufferings by the Pride and Tyranny of their Bishops if they permitted them to grow great and powerful and did not cast about in time to prevent the mischief And to exasperate them the more the Superstitions of the Liturgie now at the point of being put in execution were presented to them which if once settled amongst them as was then intended would in short time reduce them under the Obedience of the Church of Rome They could not but confess That many things which were found fault with in the English Liturgie were in this altered unto the better the name of Priest so odious unto them of the Puritan Faction changed to that of Presbyter no fewer than sixty Chapters or thereabouts taken out of the Apocrypha appointed to be read by the Church in the English Book reduced to two and those two to be read only on the Feast of All-Saints The new Translation Authorised by King Iames being used in the Psalms Epistles Gospels Hymns and Sentences instead of the old Translation so much complained of in their Books and Conferences But what was this compared with those Superstitions those horrible Corruptions and Idolatries now ready to be thrust upon them in which this Liturgy as much exceeded that of England as that of England had departed from the simplicity and purity of the holier Churches Now therefore somewhat must be done to oppose the entrance of the Popish superstitious Service-Book either now or never But the Presbyterian Ministers who had gone thus far did not alone bring fewel to feed this flame to which some men of all degrees and qualities did contribute with them The Lords and Gentry of the Realm who feared nothing so much as the Commission of surrendries above mentioned laid hold on this occasion also and they being seconded by some male-contented Spirits of that Nation who had not found the King to be as prodigal of his bounties to them as his Father had been before endeavoured to possess them with Fears and Jealousies that Scotland was to be reduced to the Form of a Province and governed by a Deputy or Lord Lieutenant as Ireland was The like done also by some Lords of secret Counsel who before had governed as they listed and thought their power diminished and their persons under some neglect by the placing of a Lord President over them to direct in Chief So that the People generally being fooled into this opinion that both their Christian and Civil Liberty was in no small danger became capable of any impression which the Presbyterian Faction could imprint upon them nor did they want incouragements from the Faction in England to whom the Publication of the Book for Sports the transposing of the holy Table the suppressing of so many Lecturers and Afternoon Sermons and the inhibiting of Preaching Writing Printing in defence of Calvinism were as distasteful and offensive as the new Liturgie with all the supposed superstitions of it was to those of Scotland This Combination made and the ground thus laid it is no wonder if the people brake out into those distempers which soon after followed Sunday the 23 of Iuly was the day appointed for the first reading of the New Liturgy in all the Churches of that Kingdom and how it sped at Edenborough which was to be exemplary to all the rest shall be told by another who hath done it to my hand already Iuly 23. being Sunday the Dean of Edenborough began to read the Book in St. Giles his Church the chief of that City but he had no sooner entred on it than the inferiour multitude began in a tumultuous manner to fill the Church with uprore whereupon the Bishop of Edenborough stept into the Pulpit and hoping to appease them by minding them of the Sanctity of the place they were the more enraged throwing at him Cudgels Stools and what was in the way of Fury unto the very endangering of his life Upon this the Archbishop of St. Andrews Lord Chancellor was enforced to call down from the Gallery the Provost Bailiffs and other Magistrates of the City to their assistance who with much ado at length thrust the unruly Rabble out of the Church and made fast the doors This done the Dean proceeded in reading the Book the multitude in the mean while rapping at the doors pelting the Windows with stones and endeavouring what in them lay to disturb the Sacred Exercise but notwithstanding all this clamour the Service was ended but not the peoples rage who waiting the Bishops retiring to his Lodging so assaulted him as had he not been rescued by a strong hand he had probably perisht by their violence Nor was S. Giles his Church thus only pestered and profaned but in other Churches also though not in so high a measure the peoples disorders were agreeable The Morning thus past the Lord Chancellor and Council assembled to prevent the like darings in the Afternoon which they so effected as the Liturgy was read without any disturbance Only the Bishop of Edenborough was in his return to his Lodging rudely treated by the people the Earl of Roxboroughs Coach in which he passed serving for no protection to him though Roxborough himself was highly favoured of the People and not without some cause suspected to have had a hand in the Commotions of that day The business having thus miscarried in Edenborough stood at a stand in all other Churches of that Kingdom and therefore it will not be amiss to enquire in this place into the causes and occasions of it it seeming very strange to all knowing and discerning men that the Child that had so long lain in the Womb perfectly formed and now made ready for the birth should not have strength enough to be delivered Amongst which causes if disposed into ranke and order that which appears first is the confidence which Canterbury had in the Earl of Traquaire whom he had raised from the condition of a
private Laird to be a Peer of that Realm made him first Treasurer Depute Chancellor of the Exchequer we should call him in England afterwards Lord Treasurer and Privy Counsellor of that Kingdom This man he wrought himself so far into Lauds good liking when he was Bishop of London only that he looked upon him as the fittest Minister to promote the Service of that Church taking him into his nearest thoughts communicating to him all his Counsels committed to his care the conduct of the whole Affair and giving order to the Archbishops and Bishops of Scotland not to do any thing without his privity and direction But being an Hamiltonian Scot either originally such or brought over at last he treacherously betrayed the cause communicated his Instructions to the opposite Faction from one time to another and conscious of the plot for the next daies tumult withdrew himself to the Earl of Mortons house of Dalkeith to expect the issue And possible it is that by his advice the executing of the Liturgy was put off from Easter at what time the reading of it was designed by his Majesty as appears by the Proclamation of December 20. which confirmed the Book By which improvident delay he gave the Presbyterian Faction the longer time to confederate themselves against it and to possess the people with Fears and Jealousies that by admitting of that book they should lose the Purity of their Religion and be brought back unto the Superstitions and Idolatries of the Church of Rome And by this means the People were inflamed into that Sedition which probably might have been prevented by a quicker prosecution of the Cause at the time appointed there being nothing more destructive of all publick Counsels than to let them take wind amongst the People cooled by delaies and finally blown up like a strong Fortress undermined by some subtle practice And there were some miscarriages also amongst the Prelates of the Kirk in not communicating the design with the Lords of the Council and other great men of the Realm whose Countenance both in Court and Country might have sped the business Canterbury had directed the contrary in his Letters to them when the first draughts of the Liturgy were in preparation and seems not well pleased in another of his to the Archbishop of St. Andrews bearing date September 4. that his advice in it was not followed nor the whole body of the Council made acquainted with their Resolutions or their advice taken or their power called in for their assistance till it was too late It was complained of also by some of the Bishops that they were made strangers to the business who in all Reason ought to have been trusted with the knowledge of that intention which could not otherwise than by their diligence and endeavours amongst their Clergy be brought to a happy execution Nor was there any care taken to adulce the Ministers to gain them to the Cause by fair hopes and promises and thereby to take off the edge of such Leading men as had an influence on the rest as if the work were able to carry on it self or have so much Divine assistance as countervailed the want of all helps from man And which perhaps conduced as much to the destruction of the Service as all the rest a publick intimation must be made in all their Churches on the Sunday before that the Liturgie should be read on the Lords day following of purpose as it were to unite all such as were not well affected to it to disturb the same And there were some miscarriages also which may be looked on as Accessories after the Fact by which the mischief grew remediless and the malady almost incurable For first the Archbishops and Bishops most concerned in it when they saw what hapned consulted by themselves apart and sent up to the King without calling a Council or joyning the Lay Lords with them whereas all had been little enough in a business of that nature and so much opposed by such Factious persons as gathered themselves on purpose together at Edenborough to disturb the Service A particular in which the Lay Lords could not be engaged too far if they had been treated as they ought But having run upon this error they committed a worse in leaving Edenborough to it self and retiring every one to his own Diocess except those of Galloway and Dumblaine For certainly they must needs think as Canterbury writes in one of his Letters to Traquaire that the Adverse party would make use of the present time to put further difficulties upon the work and therefore that they should have been as careful to uphold it the Bishop of Ross especially whose hand had been as much in it as the most But possibly the Bishops might conceive the place to be unsecure and therefore could not stay with safety neither the Lords of the Council nor the Magistrates of the City having taken any course to bring the chief Ringleaders of the Tumult to the Bar of Justice which must needs animate all disaffected and seditious persons and almost break the hearts of those who were well enclined And such indeed was the neglect of the Civil Magistrate that we hear of no man punished scarce so much as questioned for so great a Riot as was not to be expiated but by the death or some proportionable punishment of the chief offenders Which had it been inflicted on some three or four for a terror to others it might have kept that City quiet and the whole Kingdom in obedience for the time to come to the saving of the lives of many thousands some hundreds of thousands at the least in all the three Kingdoms most miserably lost in those long and cruel Wars which ensued upon it But the Lords of Scotland were so far from looking before them that they took care only for the present and instead of executing Justice on the Malefactors suspended the Liturgie it self as the cause of the Tumult conceiving it a safer way to calm the differences than to encrease the storm by a more rigorous and strict proceeding All that they did in order to his Majesties Service or the Churches peace was the calling in of a scandalous Pamphlet entituled A dispute against the English Popish Ceremonies obtruded on the Kirk of Scotland which not being done till October 20 following rather declared their willingness to suffer the said Book to be first dispersed and set abroad then to be called in and suppressed Nor seemed the business to be much taken to heart in the Court of England from whom the Scots expected to receive Directions Nor Order given them for unsheathing the Sword of Justice to cut off such unsound and putrified Members which might have saved the whole Body from a Gangreen the drawing of some Blood in the Body Politick by the punishment of Malefactors being like letting Blood in the Body Natural which in some strong Distempers doth preserve the whole Or granting that the Tumult
had been grown so high and so strongly backed that Justice could not safely have been done upon them a way might have been found to have cooled the Fever without loss of Blood by bringing the whole Corporation under the danger of a forfeiture of their Lands and Liberties in a Legal way which course proved so successful unto King IAMES on the like occasion Anno 1597. Or finally supposing that the Cause admitted not such a long delay if then his Majesty had but sent a Squadron of the Royal Navy which he had at Sea to block up their Haven he had soon brought the Edenburghers unto his devotion and consequently kept all the rest of the Kingdom in a safe Obedience This was the way to keep them under and of this course the People of the City were more afraid than of any other Somewhat they are to do which might make his Majesty hope better of them than they had deserved and nothing they could do which might better please him than to express their chearfulness in admitting the Liturgie To this end they addressed their Letters to the Archbishop of Canterbury as more concerned in this Affair than any other of the Lords which were neer his Majesty expressing in the same their great dislike of the late Tumult for their Innocency therein they refer themselves to his Majesties Council in that Kingdom declaring further their concurrence with the Bishops which remained in the City and the Ministry of the same for settling the Service-Book and offering Means above their Power to such as should undertake the Reading of it and finally desiring his Grace to make known to his Majesty how ready they were at all points to advance the Service which they promised to accept as an accumulation of his Graces Favours unto them and their City And that this Letter of theirs which bears date the nineteenth of August might bear the greater credit with him they did not only seem industrious for the apprehending of some and the inquiring after others of the Principal Actors but bound themselves by an Obligatory Act of the Common-Council both for the Indempnity and Maintenance of such as should read the Book the Ministers of Edenborough refusing to do their parts in it without such Encouragements But the danger was no sooner over by the coming home of the Fleet but they Petitioned the Lords of the Council to put them into the same condition with the rest of the Subjects and that the Service-Book should be no further pressed on them than it had been in all the other parts of the Kingdom To which they were encouraged by a general confluence of all sorts of People such most especially as had most shewn their disaffection to the work in hand For the Harvest was no sooner in and the People at more leisure than before to pursue that Quarrel but the City swarmed with throngs of People from all parts even to a formidable number which moved the Lords to publish two Proclamations on the seventeenth of October The first commanding all of them to repair to their Dwellings except such as should shew sufficient reason for their stay and continuance there The second for Adjourning the Sessions from Edenborough to the Town of Linlithgow But this served rather like the powring on of Oyl to encrease the Flame than of Water to quench it For the next day the Bishop of Galloway being to Sit with the Lord Chief Justice upon some especial Business in the Council-House he was pursued all along the Street with bitter Railings to the very Door and being drawn in from the rage of the People they immediately beset the House demanding the delivery of him and threatning his destruction The Earl of Traquair being advertised of the Bishops danger who formerly had been his Tutor came to his Relief and with much ado forced an Entrance thorow the Press But being got in he was in no better plight than the Bishop the Clamour still encreasing more and more and encompassing the Council-House with terrible Menaces Hereupon the Provost and City-Council was called to raise the Siege but they returned answer That their condition was the same for they were surrounded with the like Multitude who had enforced them for fear of their Lives to sign a Paper importing First That they should adhere to them in opposition to the Service-Book Secondly To restore to their Places Ramsey and Rollock two Silenced Ministers and one Henderson a Silenced Reader No better Answer being returned the Lord Treasurer with the Earl of Wigton went in Person to the Town-Council-House where they found the heat of the fury somewhat abated because the Magistrates had signed the Paper and returned with some hope that the Magistrates would calm the Disorders about the Council-House so as the Bishop might be preserved But they no sooner presented themselves to the Great Street than they were most boysterously assaulted the Throng being so furious as they pulled down the Lord Treasurer took away his Hat Cloack and White Staff and so haled him to the Council-House The Lords seeing themselves in so great danger at length pitch upon the best expedient for their safety and sent to some of the Noblemen and Gentry who were disaffected to the Service-Book to come to their Aid These Lords and Gentlemen came as was desired and offered both their Persons and Power to protect them which the Lords and the Council-House readily embraced and so were quietly guarded to Holy-Rood-House and the Bishop to his Lodging The Lords of the Council not thinking themselves to be secure published a Proclamation the same day in the afternoon for repressing such Disorders for the time to come But they found slender Obedience yielded to it Commissioners being sent unto them from the Citizens in an insolent manner for demanding the Restitution of their Ministers to their Place and Function and performing all such Matters as had been agreed on at the Pacification These Riots and Seditions might have served sufficiently in another Reign to have drawn a present War upon them before they were provided in the least degree to make any resistance But the Edenburghers knew well enough what they were to do what Friends they had about the King and what a Party they had got among the Lords of his Council which Governed the Affairs of that Kingdom And they were apt enough to hope by the unpunishing of the first Tumult on Iuly 23. That the King might rather have patience enough to bear such Indignities than Resolution to revenge them so that he came at last to that perplexity which a good Author speaks of That he must either out-go his Nature or fore-go his Authority For instead of using his just Power to correct their Insolencies he courts them with his Gracious Proclamation of the seventh of December in which he lets them know How unwilling he was that his Loyal and Faithful Subjects should be possessed with groundless and unnecessary doubts and fears touching
excused for Age and indisposition testified their affections to his Majesties Service in good Sums of money The Flower of the English Gentry would not stay behind but chearfully put themselves into the Action upon a confidence of getting honour for themselves as well as for their King or Country many of which had been at great charge in fâ—rniâ—â—ing themselves for this Expedition on an assurance of being repaid in Favours what they spent in Treasure And not a few of our old Commanders which had been trained up in the Wars of Holland and the King of Sweden deserted their Employments 〈◊〉 to serve their Soveraign whether with a greater gallantry or a â—ection it is hard to say The Horse computed to 6000. as good as ever charged on a standing Enemy The Foot of a sufficient number though not proportionable to the Horse stout men and well a 〈◊〉 for the most part to the Cause in hand the Canon Bullets and all other sorts oâ— Ammunition nothing inferiour to the rest of the Preparations An Army able to have trampled all Scotland under their feet Gods ordinary providence concurring with them and made the King as absolutely Master of that Kingdom as many Prince could be of a conquered Nation The chief Command committed to the Earl of Arundel who though not biassed toward Rome as the Scots reported him was known to be no friend to the Puritan Faction The Earl of Holland having been Captain of his Majesties Guard and formerly appointed to conduct some fresh â—ecruits to the Isle of Rhee was made Lieutenant of the Horse And the Earl of Essex who formerly had seen some service in Holland and very well understood the Art of War Lieutenant-General of the Foot Besides which power that marcht by Land there were some other Forces embarqued in a considerable part of the Royal Navy with plenty of Coin and Ammunition which was put under the command of Hamilton who must be of the Quorum in all businesses with order to ply about the Coasts of Scotland and thereby to surprise their Ships and destroy their Trade and make such further attempts to Landward as opportunity should offer and the nature of affairs require It is reported and I have it from a very good hand that when the old Archbishop of St. Andrews came to take his leave of the King at his setting forward toward the North he desired leave to give his Majesty three Advertisements before his going The first was That his Majesty would suffer none of the Scottish Nation to remain in his Army assuring him that they would never fight against their Countrymen but rather hazard the whole Army by their â—ergiversation The second was that his Majesty would make a Catalogue of all his Counsellors Officers of Houshold and domestick Servants and having so done would with his Pen obliterate and expunge the Scots beginning first with the Archbishop of St. Andrews himself who had given the Counsel conceiving as he then declared that no man could accuse the King of Partiality when they found the Archbishop of St. Andrews who had so faithfully served his Father and himself about sixty years should be expunged amongst the rest A third was That he must not hope to win upon them by Condescensions or the sweetness of his disposition or by Acts of Grace but that he should resolve to reduce them to their duty by such waies of Power as God had put into his hands The Reason of which Counsel was because he found upon a sad experience of sixty years that generally they were a people of so cross a grain that they were gained by Punishments and lost by Favours But contrary to this good Counsel his Majesty did not only permit all his own Servants of that Nation to remain about him but suffered the Earls of Roxborough and Traquaire and other Noblemen of that Kingdom with their several Followers and Retinues to repair to York under pretence of offering of some expedient to compose the differences Where being come they plyed their business so well that by representing to the Lords of the English Nation the dangers they would bring themselves into by the Pride and Tyranny of the Bishops if the Scots were totally subdued they mitigated the displeasures of some and so took off the edge of others that they did not go from York the same men they came thither On the discovery of which Practice and some intelligence which they had with the Covenanters they were confined to their Chambers the first at York the other at Newcastle but were presently dismissed again and sent back to Scotland But they had first done what they came for never men being so suddenly cooled as the Lords of England or ever making clearer shews of an alteration in their words and gestures This change his Majesty soon found or had cause to fear and therefore for the better keeping of his Party together he caused an Oath to be propounded to all the Lords and others of chief Eminency which attended on him before his departure out of York knowing full well that those of the inferiour Orbs would be wholly governed by the motion of the higher Spheres The Tenor of which Oath was this that followeth I A. B. do Swear before the Almighty and Ever-living God That I will bear all faithful Allegiance to my true and undoubted Sovereign King CHARLES who is Lawful King of this Island and all other his Kingdoms and Dominions both by Sea and Land by the Laws of God and Man and by Lawful Succession And that I will mâ—st constantly and most chearfully even to the utmost hazard of my Life and Fortunes oppose all Seditions Rebellions Conjurations Conspiracies whatsoever against his Royal Dignity Crown and Person raised or set up under what pretence or colour soever And if it shall come vailed under pretence of Religion I hold it more abominable both before God and Man And this Oath I take voluntarily in the Faith of a good Christian and Loyal Subject without Equivocation or mental Reservation whatsoever from which I hold no Power on Earth can absolve me in any part Such was the Tenour of the Oath which being refused by two and but two of the Lords of which one would not Say it nor the other â—rock it the said Refusers were committed to the Custody of the Sheriffs of York and afterwards for their further Tryal Interrogated upon certain Articles touching their approbation or dislike of the War To which their Answers were so doubtful and unsatisfactory that his Majesty thought it safer for him to dismiss them home than to keep them longer about him to corrupt the rest By means whereof he furnished them with an opportunity of doing him more disservice at home where there was no body to attend and observe their Actions than possibly they could have done in the Army where there were so many eyes to watch them and so many hands to pull them back if they proved extravagant As to the
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
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
be delivered in Parliament before the thirtieth of October next ensuing Anno 1641. It may be justly wondred at that all this while we have heard nothing of the Scots the chief promoters of these mischiefs but we may rest ourselves assured that they were not idle soliciting their affairs both openly and underhand instant in season and cut of season till they had brought about all ends which invited them hither They had made sure work with the Lord Lieutenant and feared 〈◊〉 the Resurâ—â—ction of the Lord Archbishop though Doâ—med at that time only to a Civil death They had gratified the Commons in procuring all the Acts of Parliament before remembred and paring the Bishops nails to the very quick by the only terrour of their Arms and were reciprocally gratified by them with a gift of three hundred thousand pounds of good English money in the name of a brotherly assistance for their pretended former losses which could not rationally be computed to the tenth part of that Sum. And in relation to that Treaty they gained in a manner all those points which had been first insisted on in the meeting at Rippon and many additionals also which were brought in afterwards by London In their Demand concerning Unity in Religion and Uniformity in Church-Government the Answer savoured rather of delay than satisfaction amounting to no more than this That his Majesty with the Advice oâ— both Houses of Parliament did well approve of the affections of his Subjects of Scotland in their desires of having a Conformity of Church-Government between the two Nations And that as the Parliament had already taken into consideration the Reformation of Church-Government so they would proceed therein in due time as should best conduce to the glory of God and peace of the Church and of both Kingdoms Which Condescensions and Conclusions being ratified on August 7. by Act of Parliament in England a Provision was also made for the security of all his Majesties Party in reference to the former troubles excluding only the Scottish Prelates and four more of that Nation from the benefit of it And that being done his Majesty sâ—t forwards toward Scotland on Tuesday the tenth of the same month giving order as he went for the Disbanding of both Armies that they might be no further charge or trouble to him Welcomed he was with great joy to the City of Edenborough in regard he came with full desires and resolutions of giving all satisfaction to that People which they could expect though to the Diminution of his Royal Rights and just Prerogative He was resolved to sweeten and Caress them with all Acts of Grace that so they might reciprocate with him in their Love and Loyalty though therein he found himself deceived For he not only ratified all the Transactions of the Treaty confirmed in England by Act of Parliament in that Kingdom but by like Act abolished the Episcopal Government and yielded to an alienation of all Church-Lands restored by his Father or himself for the maintenance of it A matter of most woful consequence to the Church of England For the House of Commons being advertised of these Transactions prest him with their continual importunities after his Return to subvert the Government oâ— Bishops here in England in the destruction whereof he had been pleased to gratifie his Scottish Subjects which could not be râ—puted so considerable in his estimation nor were so in the eye of the World as the English were What followed hereupon we may hear too soon â—â—is good sucâ—â—ss of the Scots encouraged the Irish Papists to attempt the like and to attempt it in the same way the Scots had gone that is to say by seâ—sing his Majesties Towns Forts and Castles putting themselves into the body of an Army banishing and imprisoning all such as opposed their Practices and then Petitioning the King for a publick exercise of their Religion And they had this great furtherance to promote their hopes For when the King was prest by the Commons for the disbanding of the Irish Army a suite was made unto him by the Embassadour of Spain that he might have leave to list three or four thousand of them for his Masters Service in the Wars to which motion his Majesty readily condescending gave order in it accordingly But the Commons never thinking themselves 〈◊〉 as long as any of that Army had a Sword in his hand never 〈◊〉 inâ—pâ—â—tuning the King whom they had now brought to the condition 〈◊〉 dâ—â—ying nothing which they asked till they had made him â—at his word and revoke those Orders to his great dishonour which so â—xâ—â—pâ—rated that Army consisting of 8000 Foot and 1000 Horse that it was no hard matter for those who had the managing of tâ—at Plot to make sure of them And then considering that the Scâ—â—s by raising of an Army had gained from the King an abolition of tâ—e Episcopal Order the Rescinding of his own and his Fathers Acts aâ—out the reducing of that Church to some Uniformity with this aâ—d settled their Kirk in such a way as best pleased their own humours Why might not the Irish Papists hope that by the help of such an Army ready raised to their hands or easily drawn together tâ—ough dispersed at present they might obtain the like indulgences and grants for their Religion The 23 of October was the day designed for tâ—e seizing of the City and Castle of Dublin and many places of great Importance in that Kingdom But failing in the main dâ—â—ign which had been discovered the night before by one O Conally they brake out into open Arms dealing no better with the Protestants there than the Covenanters had done with the Royal Party in Scotland Oâ— this Rebellion for it must be called a Rebellion in the Irish though not in the Scots his Majesty gives present notice to the Houses of Parliament requiring their Counsel and assistance for the extinguishing of that Flame before it had wasted and consumed that Kingdom But neither the necessity of the Protestants there â—ot the Kings importunity here could perswade them to Levy one man toward the suppression of those Rebels till the King had disclaimed his power of pressing Souldiers in an Act of Parliament and thereby laid himself open to such Acts of violence as were then hammering against him But to proceed his Majesty having settled his Affairs in Scotland to the full contentment of the People by granting them the Acts of Grace before remembred and giving some addition of Honour to his greatest enemies amongst whom Lesly who commanded their two lâ—te Armies most undeservedly was advanced to the Title of Earl of Leven prepared in the beginning of Novemb. for his journey to London where he was welcomed by the Lord Mayor and Citizens with all imaginable expressions of Love and Duty But the Commons at the other end of the Town entertain'd him with a sharp Declaration Entituled The Remonstrance of the State of the Kingdom which they presented to
it is affirmed That the ground of this Government by Episcopacy is so ancient and so general so uncontradicted in the first and best times that our most laborious Antiquaries can find no Nation no City no Church no Houses under any other that our first Ecclesiastical Authors tell us of That the Apostles not only allowed but founded Bishops so that the Tradition for some Books of Scripture which we receive as Canonical is both less ancient less general and less uncontradicted than that is So he when he was come again to his former temper and not yet entred nor initiated into Court preferments Nor was the point only canvased within those walls but managed in a more publick way by the Pens of some than there it had been tossed on the Tongues of others The Bishop of Exon. leads the way presenting An humble Remonstrance to the High Court of Parliament in behalf of Liturgie and Episcopacy which presently was encountred with an answer to it wâ—erein the Original of Liturgy and Episcopacy is pretended to be discussed c. This Answer framed by a Juncto of five Presbyterian Ministers in or about the City of London the first Letters of whose names being laid together made up the word Smectymnuus which appears only for the Author The Bishop hereunto replies in a Vindication by which name he called it which Vindication had an Answer or Rejoynder to it by the same Smectymnuus During which Interfeats of Arms and exchange of Pens a Discourse was published by Sir Thomas Ashton Knight and Baronet In the first part whereof he gives us A survey of the Inconveniences of the Presbyterian Discipline and the inconsistences thereof with the constitution of this State And in the second The original Institution Succession and Iurisdiction of the ancient and venerable order of Bishops This last part seconded within the compass of this year by the History of Episcopacy first published as the work of Theophilus Churchman and not till many years after owned by the Authors name The next year bringing forth a book of Dr. Taylors called Episcopacy asserted and the Acriomastix of Iohn Theyer c. All of them backt and the two last encouraged by many Petitions to his Majesty and both Houses of Parliament not only from the two Universities whom it most concerned but from several Counties of the Kingdom of which more hereafter I shall conclude this year with a remembrance of some change of Officers in the Court but of more in the Church Windebanke Secretary of State being questioned for releasing divers Priests and Jesuites contrary to the established Laws conveyed himself over into France and Finch Lord Keeper on some distrust which he had of his safety for acting too zealously in the Forrest-business and the 〈◊〉 of Shipmoney withdrew at the same time into Holland Pembroke Lord Chamberlain of the houshold was discharged of his Office by the King upon just displeasures before his late going into Scotland The Earl of Newcastle for the Reasons before remembred had relinquished his charge of the Princes Person and Cottington his Offices in the Exchequer and Court of Wards Neile Archbishop of York died some few daies before the beginning of the Parliament Mountague of Chichester Bancroft of Oxon. Davenant of Salisbury Potter of Carlisle and Thornborough of Worcester within few months after Nature abhorreth nothing more than Vacuity and it proved to be very agreeable to the Rules of Polity not to suâ—fer their preferments to lye longer in a state of Vacancy To fill these Places the Earl of Hertford about that time advanced to the Title of Marquiss was made and sworn Governour of the Prince Essex Lord Chamberlain of the Houshold Say Master of the Court of Wards and Liveries Littleton Chief Justice of the Common-Pleas preferred to the honour of Lord Keeper Faulkland made Secretary of Estate and Culpepper Chancellour of the Exchequer Which two last being Members of the House of Commons and well acquainted with such designs as were then in Project and men of good parts withall were thought worth the gaining and fastned to the Court by these great Preferments Next for the Vacancies in the Church they were supplied by preferring Williams Bishop of Lincoln to the See of York and Winiff Dean of St. Pauls to the See of Lincoln Duppa of Chichester to Salisbury and King then Dean of Rochester to succeed at Chichester Hall Bishop of Exon. translated to Norwich and Brownrigg Master of Catharine Hall in Cambridge preferred to Exon. Skinner of Bristol removed to Oxon. and Westfield Archdeacon of St. Albons advanced to Bristol the Bishoprick of Carlisle was given in Commendam to the Primate of Ireland during the troubles in that Kingdom and Worcester by the power of Hamilton conferred on Prideaux who formerly had been his Tutoâ— all of them of good parts and merit and under some especial Character of esteem and favour in the eyes of the People though some of them declined afterwards from their former height Nor were there more Changes after these till the suppressing of Episcopacy by the Ordinance of the Lords and Commons bearing date October 9. anno 1646. but that Frewen Dean of Glocester and President of Magdalen Colledge in Oxon. was consecrated Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield on the death of Wright in the beginning of the year 1644. and Howel one of the Prebends of Windsor and Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty was preferred to the Bishoprick of Bristol on the death of Westfield before the end of the same year The passing of this Act forementioned put the imprisoned Bishops in some hope of a speedy deliverance though it proved not so quick as they expected For though on Munday February 14. an Order came that they might put in bail if they would that they should have their hearing on the Friday following and that some of them went out of the Tower the morrow after as appears by Breviate fol. 25. yet the Commons took it so indignly that either that Order was revoked or the Bishops had some private Advertisement to return and continue where they were The Bishops being deprived of their right of Peerage must be supposed to stand on the same ground with the rest of the People and consequently to be accountable for their Actions to the House of Commons whose Priviledges if the Peers invade they must look to hear of it as well as the poor Bishops had done before And on these terms the business stood till May 5. being just eighteen weeks from their first Imprisonment at which time without making suite to the House of Commons the Peers releast them upon baile and dismist them to their several dwellings There they continued all of them at their own disposing till the War forced them to provide themselves of safer quarters except the Bishop of Ely only who within few months after he was discharged from the Tower was seised on by a party of Souldiers at his house of Douwham and brought