back again to the Tower where he continued till the end of the year 1659. without any Charge or Accusation produced against him But as for the Archbishop of Canterbury as he first took possession of that Fatal Lodging before any of the rest came to him so he continued there after their dismission without hope of finding his passage out of it by any other door than the door of Death which as he did not look for before it came so when it came he did not fear it He had then been fifteen months a Prisoner since his first Commitment to that place as far from being brought unto his Trial as he was at the first and is to lye there as much longer before he should hear any thing of them which might tend that way only they had some pulls at him from one time to another to keep him in remembrance of his present condition and to prepare him by degrees to his last dissolution For on October 23. in the year foregoing the House of Peers sequestred his Jurisdiction from him conferring it on Brent and others of his under-officers and ordered that he should bestow none of the Benefices within his gift without acquainting them with the name and quality of the party whom he intended to prefer leaving to them the Approbation if they saw cause for it And on October 15. this present year for so long he remained without further disturbance it was resolved upon the Question That the Fines Rents and Profits of Archbishops and Bishops should be sequestred for the use and service of the Commonwealth In which though he was no more concerned yet he was as much concerned as any other of the Episcopal Order so much the more as being sure to find less favour whensoever that Vote should be put in execution by them that made it For on the ninth of November following his house at Lambeth was forcibly possessed by a Party of Souldiers to keep it for the publick Service and 78 pounds of his Rents as forcibly taken from some of his Officers by an Order under the hands of some of the Lords upon pretence of imploying it to the maintenance of his Majesties Children But upon his Petition shortly after he had an Order for securing of his Goods and Books though he secured them rather from the power of the Souldiers than from the hands of any other on whom the Houses should bestow them when they saw time for it Upon the neck of that came another Order to bar him from having Conference with any of the other Prisoners or speaking with any other but in the presence of the Warder who was appointed to attend him and from having the Liberty of the Tower or from sending any of his Servants into the City but on occasion of providing Victuals and other necessaries Not long after the Souldiers brake open the doors of his Chappel in Lambeth house and began to make foul work with the Organs there but before any great hurt was done their Captain came and put a period to their fury On December 21. his Saddle-horse was seised on by Order from some Members in the House of Commons and on 23. Leighton the Schismatick who had before been sentenced in the Star-Chamber for his libellous and seditious Pamphlets came with an Order from that house to disposses the Souldiers of their quarters there and turn his house into a Prison His Wood and Coals seised on without any permission to make any use of them for himself On March 14. he had word brought him of a plot for sending him and Bishop Wren his fellow Prisoner to perpetual Exile in New-England and that Wells a factious Preacher which came lately thence had laid wagers of it but when the matter came in agitation in the House of Commons it appeared to be so horrible and foul a practice that it was generally rejected In the beginning of May 1643 the Windows in his Chappel were defaced and the steps torn up his Goods and Books seised on by Leighton and some others And on the sixteenth of the same month he was served with an Order of both Houses debarring him from bestowing any of his Benefices which either were or should be vacant for the time to come And on the last day of the same an Order issued from some Members of that close Committee directed unto Prynne and others to seise on all his Letters and Papers to be perused by such as should be Authorised to that end and purpose So far they had proceeded in pulling him from himself piece-meal before they were ready for his Trial or seemed to have any thoughts which might look that way They had then a greater game to play and on this occasion His Majesty at his late being in Scotland expostulated with some of the chief amongst them touching their late coming into England in an hostile manner and found that some who were now leading men in the Houses of Parliament had invited them to it and having furnished himself with some proofs for it he commanded his Atturney General to impeach some of them of High Treason that is to say the Lord Kimbolton a Member of the House of Peers Hollis Pym Hasterig Stroud and Hambden of the House of Commons But sending a Serjeant at Arms to Arrest their persons there came a countermand from the House of Commons by which the Serjeant was deferred from doing his office and the Members had the opportunity of putting themselves into the Sanctuary of the City The next day being Ianuary 4. his Majesty being no otherwise attended than with his ordinary Servants and some few Gentlemen armed no otherwise than with Swords and Courage went to the House of Commons to demand the five Members that he might proceed against them in a way of Justice but his intention was discovered and the birds flown before his coming And this was voted by the House of Commons for such an unexpiable breach of Priviledge that neither tâ—e Kings qualifying of that Action nor his desisting from the prosecution of that impeachment nor any thing that he could either say or do would give satisfaction nothing must satisfie their Iealâ—usies and secure their Fears but the putting the Tower of London into their hands together with the Command of the Royal Navy as also of the Forts Castles and the Train-bands of the Kingdom all comprehended under the name of the Militia which if his Majesty would fling after all the rest they would continue his most loyal and obedient subjects On this the King demurs a while but having shipt the Queen for Holland and got the Prince into his own power he becoms more resolute and stoutly stands on the denial But finding the Members too strong for him and London by reason of the continual tumults to be a dangerous Neighbour to him he withdraws to York that being in a place of safety he might the better find a way to compose those differences which now began to embroil
the execution of such penal Laws as were made against them The People hereupon began to cry out generally of a Toleration and murmur in all places against the King as if he were resolved to grant it And that they might not seem to cry out for nothing a Letter is dispersed abroad under the name oâ— Archbishop Abbot In this Letter his Majesty is told That by granting any such Toleration he should set up the most damnable and Heretical Doctrine of the Church of Rome the whore of Babylon That it would be both hateful to God grievous to his good Subjects and contradictory to his former Writings in which he had declared their Doctrines to be Superstitious Idolatrous and detestable That no such toleration could be granted but by Parliament only unless it were his purpose to shew his people that he would throw down the Laws at his pleasure That by granting such a Toleration there must needs follow a discontinuance of the true Profession of the Gospel and what could follow thereupon but Gods heavy wrath and indignation both on himself and all the Kingdom That the Prince was not only the Son of his Flesh but the Son of his People also and therefore leaves him to consider what an errour he had run into by sending him into Spain without the privity of his Council and consent of his Subjects And finally That though the Princes return might be safe and prosperous yet they that drew him into that dangerous and desperate Action would not scape unpunished This was the substance of the Letter whosoever was the Writer of it For Abbot could not be so ill a Statesman having been long a Privy Councellour as not to know that he who sitteth at the Helm must stear his course according unto wind and weather And that there was a very great difference betwixt such personal indulgencies as the King had granted in that case to his Popish Subjects and any such Publick Exercise of their Superstitions as the word Toleration doth import and howsoever that it was a known Maxime in the Arts of Government that necessity over-rules the Law and that Princes many times must act for the publick good in the infringing of some personal and particular rights which the Subjects claim unto themselves Nor could he be so ignorant of the Kings affections as to believe that the King did really intend any such toleration though possibly he might be content on good reason of State that the people should be generally perswaded of it For well he knew that the King loved his Soveraignty too well to quit any part thereof to the Pope of Rome and consequently to part with that Supremacy in Ecclesiastical matters as needs he must have done by a Toleration which he esteemed the fairest Flower in the Royal Garland In which respect King Iames might seem to be made up of Caesar and Pompey as impatient of enduring an equal as of admitting a Superiour in his own Dominions Or had he been a greater stranger at the Court than can be imagined yet could he not be ignorant that it was the Kings chief interest to preserve Religion in the same state in which he found it and could not fear but that he would sufficiently provide for the safety of it Upon which Premises it may be rationally inferred that Abbot was only the reputed Author of this Bastard Letter and not the natural Parent of it Nor was the Toleration more feared by the English Protestants than hoped for by the Papists here and presumed by the Pope himself In confidence whereof he nominated certain Bishops to all the Episcopal Sees of England to exercise all manner of Jurisdiction in their several and respective Diocesses as his false and titular Bishops did in the Church of Ireland The intelligence whereof being given to the Jesuites here in England who feared nothing more than such a thing one of them who formerly had free access to the Lord Keeper Williams acquaints him with this mighty secret assuring him that he did it for no other reason but because he knew what a great exasperation it would give the King and consequently how much it would incense him against the Catholicks Away with this Intelligence goes the Lord Keeper to the King who took fire thereat as well as he and though it was somewhat late at night commanded to go to the Spanish Embassadour and to require him to send unto the King his Master to take some course that those proceedings might be stopt in the Court of Rome or otherwise that the Treaty of the Match should advance no further The Lord Keeper finds the Embassadour ready to send away his Pacquet who upon hearing of the news commanded his Currier to stay till he had represented the whole business in a Letter to the King his Master On the receiving of which Letter the King imparts the same to the Popes Nuncio in his Court Who presently sends his dispatches to the Pope acquainting him with the great inconveniences and unavoidable dangers of this new design which being stopt by this device and the Treaty of the Match ending in a rupture not long after the same Jesuite came again to the Lord Keepers Lodging and in a fair and facetious manner thanked him most humbly for the good office he had done for that Society for breaking and bearing off which blow all the friends they had in Rome could find no buckler Which Story as I heard from his Lordships own mouth with no small contentment so seemed he to be very well pleased with the handsomness of the trick which was put upon him Laud was not sleeping all this while It was not possible that a man of such an Active Spirit should be out of work and he had work enough to do in being the Dukes Agent at the Court The Marquiss was made Duke of Buckingham at his being in Spain to make him more considerable in the eye of that Court and this addition to his honours was an addition also to that envy which was borne against him Great Favourites have for the most part many enemies such as are carefully intent upon all occasions which may be made use of to supplant them Which point the Duke had so well studied that though he knew himself to be a very great Master of the Kings affections yet was he apprehensive of the disadvantages to which this long absence would expose him It therefoâ—e concerned him nearly to make choice of some intelligent and trusty friend whom he might confide in and he was grown more confident of Laud than of any other from whom he might receive advertisement of all occurrences and such advice as might be most agreeable to the complexion of affairs Nor did it happen otherwise than he expected for long he had not been in Spain when there were many fearings of him in the Court of England many strange whisperings into the ears of the King concerning the abuse of his Royal Favours the general
not the name of the other when it came to his turn The Ships being come and staying for a change of wind the like curtesie was desired of Pennington Admiral of that little Fleet for the present Service Pennington told them that he had no Chaplain that there was in the Ship one Dr. Ambrose his Friend and Kinsman who had borne him company in that Voyage and that he doubted not but that he would readily hearken to them if they made the motion The motion being made and granted Ambrose attends his Admiral to the place of Exercise where he took up his stand very near the Pulpit The Congregation being filled and the Psalm half done a Deacon is sent to put him in mind of going into the Pulpit of whom he desires to be accommodated with a Bible and a Common-Prayer Book The Deacon offered him a Bible but told him that they had no such thing as a Common-Prayer Book and that the Common Prayers were not used amongst them Why then said Ambrose the best is that I have one of my own which being presently taken out of his pocket he began with the Sentences and invitation and was scarce entred into the Confession when all the Church was in an uprore The Elders thereupon in a great amaze sent back the Deacon to desire him to go into the Pulpit and not to trouble them with that which they were not used to Ambrose replied That if they were an English Church they were obliged to serve God by the English Liturgie and that if they would have no Prayers they should have no Sermon and so proceeded on with the rest of the Liturgy which Message being delivered to the Elders the Deacon was sent back the third time requiring him to desist from that unnecessary Service On the receiving of which Message he puts the book into his pocket and goes out of the Church the two Embassadours following him and the Admiral them to the great honour of himself and the confusion of Iohnson from whose mouth I received the story and the other Chaplain being thus shewed their errour in not doing the like That our Bishop was ever made acquainted by the said Iohnson with this passage I am not able to say but whether he were or not he had too much ground for what he did in offering to their Lordships his considerations for regulating Divine Service in that and all other Factories Imployments and Commands of the English Nation That is to say First That the Colonels of the English Regiments in the Low-Countries should entertain no Minister as Preacher to their Regiments but such as should conform in all things to the Church of England to be commended to them by their Lordships the Advice of the Archbishop of Canterbury and York being taken in it Secondly That the Company of Merchants there residing or in any other parts shall admit no Minister as Preacher to them but such as are so qualified and so commended as aâ—oresaid Thirdly That if any Minister hath gotten himself by indirect means to be so commended and should be afterwards found to be unconformable and should not conform himself within three months upon warning giving him by the said Colonels or Deputy Governour of the Factors under whom he liveth he shall be dismist from his imployment and a more orderly man recommended to it Fourthly That every Minister or Chaplain in any Factory or Regiment whether of English or Scots shall read the Common Prayers Administer the Sacraments Catechise the Children and perform all other publick Ministerial duties according to the Rules or Rubricks of the English Liturgie and not otherwise Fifthly That if any Minister or Preacher being the Kings born Subject should with any bitter words or writings in Print or otherwise defame the Church of England by Law established notice thereof is to be given to the Ambassador there and by him to this State by whom the party so offending should be commanded over again to answer for his said offences the like to be done also in derogating from the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church and in Preaching Writing or Printing any thing prejudicial to the Temporal State and Government of the Realm of England Sixthly That no Colonel or Deputy Governour should permit their Minister or Preacher in the case of sickness or necessary absence to bring in any to preach or officiate for him but such an one for whose conformity he would be accountable Seventhly That no Deputy Governours should be sent to Delfe or any other place of Residence for the English Merchants but one that being conformable to the Church of England both in Doctrine and Discipline would take care also that such as be under him shall perform all Church duties before expressed that the party so designed shall be presented to their Lordships by the Merchant Adventurers giving assurance of his fitness and sufficiency for that charge and that some of the chief of the Merchants be sent for to the board and made acquainted with this order Eightly That as often as the said Merchants shall renew their Patents a clause for the due observation of these Instructions or so many of them at the least as should seem necessary to their Lordships to be inserted in the same Ninthly That all his Majesties Agents there from time to time have these Instructions given them in Charge and that once a year they be required to give the Board an account of the Progress of the business that further order might be taken if occasion be Tenthly That the English Ministers in Holland being his Majesties born Subjects be not suffered to hold any Classical meetings but howsoever not to assume the power of Ordination from which if they should not be restrained there would be a perpetual Seminary for breeding up men in Schism and Faction to the disturbance of this Kingdom In reference to the French and Dutch Churches here in England he proceeded in another method first representing the occasion of their settling here their several abuses of that Favour together with the manifold dangers and inconveniencies which might thence arise and next advising such agreeable remedies as he thought most proper for the cure And first he represented to them the great piety of this State in giving liberty to those Nations to enjoy the freedom of their own Religion at London and elsewhere in this Kingdom when being under persecution in their own Countries they could not enjoy the same at home Secondly That it was not the meaning of this State then or at any other time since that the first Generation being worn out their Children and Childrens Children being naturally born Subjects of this Realm should still remain divided from the rest of the Church which must needs alienate them from the State and make them apt to any innovation which may sort better with their humour Thirdly That they still keep themselves as a distinct body of themselves marrying only in their own Tribe with one
as forward in it as any other that their Contributions mounted higher than was expected The Benevolence of the Diocess of Norwich only aâ—ounting to 2016 l. 16 s. 5 d. The Archdâ—acorry of Winchester only to the sum of 1305 l. 5 s. 8 d. And though we may not conclude of all the rest by the greatness of thâ—se yet may it be very safely said that they did all exceeding bountifully in their several proportions with reference to the extent of their Diocesses and the ability of their Estates Nor were the Judges of the several Benches of the Courts at Westminster and the great Officers under them Protonotaries Secondaries and the like deficient in expressing their good aâ—â—ections to this general cause in which the safety of the Realm was as much concerned as his Majesties honour And for the Doctors of the Laws Chancellors Commissaries Officials and other Officers belonging to the Ecclesiastical Courts they were spurred on to follow the example of the Secular Judges as having a more particular concernment in it by a Letter sent from the Archbishop to the Dean of the Arches on February 11. and by him communicated to the rest By which Free-will offerings on the one side some commanded duties on the other and the well-husbanding of his Majesties Revenue by the Lord Treasurer Iuxon he was put into such a good condition that he was able both to raise and maintain an Army with no charge to the Common Subject but only a little Coat and Conduct money at their first setting out These preparations were sufficient to give notice of a War approaching without any further denouncing of it by a publick Herald and yet there was another accident which seemed as much to fore-signifie it as those preparations Mary de Medices the Widow of King Henry iâ— of France and Mother to the Queens of England and Spain arrived at Harwich on October 19. and on the last of the same was with great State conducted through the Streets of London to his Majesties Palace of St. Iames. A Lady which for many years had not lived out of the smell of Powder and a guard of Muskets at her door embroyled in wars and troubles when she lived in France and drew them after her into Flanders where they have ever since continued So that most men were able to presage a Tempest as Mariâ—eâ—s by the appearing of some Fish or the flying of some Birds about their ships can foresee a storm His Majesty had took great care to prevent her comming knowing â—ull well how chargeable a guest she would prove to him and how unwelcome to the Subject To which end â—eswel was commanded to use all his wits for perswading her to stay in Holland whither she had retired from Flanders in the year precedent But she was wedded to her will and possibly had received such invitations from her Daughter here that nothing but everlasting foul weather at Sea and a perpetual cross-wind could have kept her there All things provided for the War his Majesty thought sit to satisfie his good Subjects of both Kingdoms not only of the Justice which appeared in this Action but in the unavoydable necessity which enforced him to it To which end he acquaints them by his Proclamation of the 20 of February How traiterously some of the Scottish Nation had practiced to pervert his Loyal Subjects of this Realm by scattering abroad their Libellous and Seditious Pamphlets mingling themselves at their publick meetings and reproaching both his Person and Government That he had never any intention to alter their Religion or Laws but had condescended unto more for defence thereof than they had reason to expect That they had rejected the Band and Covenant which themselves had prest upon the people because it was commended to them by his Authority and having made a Covenant against God and him and made such Hostile preparations as if he were their sworn Enemy and not their King That many of them were men of broken Fortunes who because they could not well be worse hoped by engaging in this War to make themselves better That they had assumed unto themselves the power of the Press one of the chief markes of the Regal Authority prohibiting to Print what he commanded and commanding to Print what he prohibited and dismiâ—â—ng the Printer whom he had established in that Kingdom That they had raised Arms blockt up and besieged his Castles laid Impositions and Taxes upon his people threatned such as continued under Loyalty with force and violence That they had contemned the Authority of the Council Table and set up Tables of their own from which they send their Edâ—cts throughout all parts of the Kingdom contrary to the Laws therein established pretending in the mean time that the Laws were violated by himself That the question was not now whether the Service-Book should be received or not or whether Episcopacy should continue or not but whether he were King or not That many of them had denied the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance for which some of them had been committed as inconsistent and incompatible with their holy Covenant That being brought under a necessity of taking Arms he had been traduced in some of their writings for committing the Arms he had then raised into the hands of professed Papists a thing not only dishonourable to himself and the said noble persons but false and odious in it self That some of power in the Hierarchy had been defamed for being the cause of his taking Arms to invade that Kingdom who on the contrary had been only Counsellors of peace and the chief perswaders as much as in them lay of the undeserved moderation wherewith he had hitherto proceeded toward so great Offenders That he had no intent by commending the Service-Book unto them to innovate any thing at all in their Religion but only to create a conformity between the Churches of both Kingdoms and not to infringe any of their Liberties which were according to the Laws That therefore he required all his loving Subjects not to receive any more of the said seditious Pamphlets but to deliver such of them as they had received into the hands of the next Justice of the Peace by him to be sent to one of his Majesties principal Secretaries And finally That this his Proclamation and Declaration be read in time of Divine Service in every Church within the Kingdom that all his People to the meanest might see the notorious carriages of these men and likewise the Justice and Mercy of all his proceedings And now his Majesty is for Action beginning his Journey towards the North March 27. being the Anniversary day of his Inauguration His Army was advanced before the best for quality of the Persons compleatness of Arms number of serviceable Horse and necessary Provision of all sorts that ever waited on a King of England to a War with Scotland Most of the Nobility attended on him in their Persons and such as were to be
provide them Necessaries before they would budge toward the Tweed And yet all these Temptations were not of such prevalency with the Principal Covenanters as an Assurance which was given them of calling Canterbury their supposed old Enemy to a present Tryal Who having been imprisoned upon their complaint almost three years since seems to have been preserved all this while for no other purpose than for a bait to hook them in for some new Imployments The Walls of some Confederacies like that of Catiline are never thought to be sufficiently well built but when they are cemented with bloud All matters thus resolved on the Covenant agreed on betwixt them and the Scots was solemnly taken by both Houses in St. Margarets Church and generally imposed upon all such as were obnoxious to their power and lived under the command of their Forts and Garrisons the taking whereof conduced as visibly to the destruction of this most reverend and renowned Prelate as to the present subversion of the Government and Liturgy here by Law established In the first branch it was to be covenanted and agreed between the Nations that is to say between the Puritan or Presbyterian Factions in either Kingdom That all endeavours should be used for the preservation of the Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland both in Doctrine Worship Liturgy and Government and for bringing the three Kingdoms to the nearest Conjunction and Uniformity in Religion Confession of Faith Form of Church-Government Directory for Worship and Catechising And in the second That in like manner they endeavour without any respect of Persons the extirpation of Popery Prelacy that is Church-Government by Archbishops and Bishops their Chancellors or Commissaries Deans Deans and Chapters Archdeacons and all other Ecclesiastical Officers depending on the Hierarchy Superstition Heresie Schism Profaneness and what soever should be found contrary to sound Doctrine and the power of Godliness But all this might have been pursued to the end of the Chace without danger to the life of any whether they endeavoured it or not whether their lives might be an hindrance or their deaths give a spur to put on the work And therefore in the fourth place it was also Covenanted That they should with all diligence and faithfulness discover all such as have been or shall be Incendiaries Malignants or evil Instruments by hindring the Reformation of Religion dividing the King from his People or one of the Kingdoms from one another or making any Faction or Parties amongst the People contrary to this League and Covenant that they may be brought to publick trial and receive condign punishment as the degree of their offences shall require or deserve or the supream Judicatories of both Kingdoms respectively or others having power from them for that effect shall judge convenient Which Article seems to have been made to no other purpose but to bring the Archbishop to the Block as the like clause was thrust into the Protestation of the third of May Anno 1641. to make sure work with the Earl of Strafford whom they had then designed to the said sad end And this may be the rather thought because the Covenant was contrived and framed in Scotland where none but his sworn Enemies could be supposed to have had any hand in it and being by them so contrived was swallowed without much enewing by the Houses of Parliament who were not then in a con 〈◊〉 to deny them any thing But by whomsoever it was framed his Majesty saw well enough that it aimed at the subversion of the present Government and the diminution of his Power if not the destruction of his Person the preservation and safety whereof was to be endeavoured no further than in defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdom Which how great or little it might be or what was meant by true Religion and the publick Liberties was left wholly unto their construction who would be sure not to interpret any thing to his best advantage His Majesty therefore looking on it as a dangerous Combination against himself the established Religion and the Laws of this Kingdom for the bringing in of Foreign Forces to subvert them all interdicted all his Subjects from imposing or taking the same as they would answer the contrary at their utmost Perils Which Proclamation bearing date on the ninth of October came out too late to hinder the taking and enjoyning of this Covenant where the restraint thereof might have been most necessary For the Commons were so quick at their work that on Munday September 25. it had been solemnly taken by all the Members of that House and the Assembly of Divines at St. Margarets in Westminster in the same Church within two daies after it was administred with no less solemnity to divers Lords Knights Gentlemen Colonels Officers Souldiers and others residing in and about the City of London a Sermon being preached by Coleman though otherwise a principal Erastian in point of Government to justifie the Piety and Legality of it and finally enjoyned to be taken on the Sunday following in all Churches and Chappels of London within the Lines of Communication by all and every the Inhabitants within the same as afterward by all the Kingdom in convenient time Prosecuted in all places with such cursed rigour that all such who refused to subscribe the same and to lift up their hands to God in testimony that they called him to witness to it were turned both out of house and home as they use to say not suffered to compound for their Goods or Lands till they had submitted thereunto A terrible and wofull time in which men were not suffered to enjoy their Estates without betraying themselves to the Kings displeasure and making shipwrack of a good conscience in the sight of God Upon which ground considering it consisted of six Principal branches it was compared by some to the six knotted whip or the Statute of the six Articles in the time of King Henry viii this Covenant drawing in the Scots and thereby giving an occasion of shedding infinitely much more bloud than those Articles did Certain I am that if all such as died in the War upon that account may not go for Martyrs all such as irrecoverably lost their Estates and Livings for refusal of it may be called Confessors Others with no unhappy curiosity observing the number of the words which make up this Covenant abstracted from the Preface and Conclusion of it found them amounting in the total to 666. neither more nor less which being the number of the Beast in the Revelation pursued with such an open persecution and prosecuted to the loss of so many lives the undoing of so many Families and the subverting of the Government both of Church and State may very justly intitle it to so much of Antichrist as others have endeavoured to confer on the Popes of Rome For if the Pope shewed any thing of the Spirit of Antichrist by bringing Cranmer the first Protestant
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
in sundry parts of this Kingdom And therefore he did not only require that none of them might have any manner of Covert Protection Countenance or connivence from them or any of the rest as they tendred his Royal Commandment in that behalf but that all possible diligence be used as well to unmask the false shadows and pretences of those who may possibly be won to Conformity letting all men know That he could not think well of any that having Place and Authority in the Church do permit such persons to pass with impunity much less if they give them any countenance to the emboldening them or their adherents On the receiving of these Letters Abbot transmits the Copies of them to his several Suffragans and to our Bishop of St. Davids amongst the rest requiring him to conform therein to his Majesties Pleasure and to see the same executed in all parts of his Diocess On the receipt whereof the Bishop commands his Chancellor Arch-Deacons and other Ecclesiastical Officers within his Diocess of St. Davids That all possible care be taken of such as are any way backward in Points of Religion and more especially of known and professed Recusants that they may be carefully presented and Proceedings had against them to Excommunication according to form and order of Law and that there be a true List and Catalogue of all such as have been presented and proceeded against sent to him yearly after Easter by him to be presented to the Archbishop of Canterbury as had been required No Command given unto his Chancellor and other Officers to look into the Practises and Proceedings of the Puritan Faction for which I am able to give no reason but that he had received no such Direction and Command from Archbishop Abbot whose Letter pointed him no further it is no hard matter to say why than to the searching out presenting and Excommunicating the Popish Recusants And in what he commanded he was obeyed by his Chancellor returning to him in Iune following the names of such Recusants as lived within the Counties of Caermarthen and Pembroke the chief parts of his Diocess The Kings Coronation now draws on for which Solemnity he had appointed the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin better known by the name of Candlemas day The Coronations of King Edward vi and Queen Elizabeth had been performed according to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Roman Pontificals That at the Coronation of King Iames had been drawn in haste and wanted many things which might have been considered of in a time of leasure His Majesty therefore issueth a Commission to the Archbishop of Canterbury and certain other Bishops whereof Laud was one to consider of the Form and Order of the Coronation and to accomodate the same more punctually to the present Rules and Orders of the Church of England On the fourth of Ianuary the Commissioners first met to consult about it and having compared tâ—e Form observed in the Coronation of King Iames with the publick Rituals it was agreed upon amongst them to make some Alterations in it and Additions to it The Alteration in it was that the Unction was to be performed in forma Crucis after the manner of a Cross which was accordingly done by Abbot when he officiated as Archbishop of Canterbury in the Coronation The Additions in the Form consisted chiefly in one Prayer or Request to him in the behalf of the Clergy and the clause of another Prayer for him to Almighty God the last of which was thought to have ascribed too much Power to the King the first to themselves especially by the advancing of the Bishops and Clergy above the Laity The Prayer or Request which was made to him followed after the Vnction and was this viz. Stand and hold fast from henceforth the Place to which you have been Heir by the Succession of your Forefathers being now delivered to you by the Authority of Almighty God and by the hands of us and all the Bishops and Servants of God And as you see the Clergy to come neerer to the Altar than others so remember that in place convenient you give them greater honour that the Mediator of God and Man may establish you in the Kingly Throne to be the Mediator between the Clergy and the Laity that you may Reign for ever with Iesus Christ the King of Kings and Lord of Lords who with the Father and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth for ever Amen The Clause of that Prayer which was made for him had been intermitted since the time of King Henry vi and was this that followeth viz. Let him obtain favour for the People like Aaron in the Tabernacle Elisha in the Waters Zacharias in the Temple Give him Peters Key of Discipline and Pauls Doctrine Which Clause had been omitted in times of Popery as intimating more Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction to be given to our Kings than the Popes allowed of and for the same reason was now quarrell'd at by the Puritan Faction It was objected commonly in the time of his fall That in digesting the form of the Coronation he altered the Coronation Oath making it more advantageous to the King and less beneficial to the People than it had been formerly from which calumny his Majesty cleared both himself and the Bishop when they were both involved by common Speech in the guilt thereof For the clearer manifestation of which truth I will first set down the Oath it self as it was taken by the King and then the Kings Defence for his taking of it Now the Oath is this The Form of the CORONATION-OATH SIR says the Archbishop Will you grant keep and by your Oath confirm to your People of ENGLAND the Laws and Customs to them granted by the Kings of ENGLAND your Lawful and Religious Predecessors and namely the Laws Customs and Franchises granted to the Clergy by the Glorious King St. Edward your Predecessor according to the Laws of God the true Profession of the Gospel established in this Kingdom and agreeable to the Prerogative of the Kings thereof and the Ancient Customs of this Land The King Answers I grant and promise to keep them Archbishop Sir Will you keep Peace and Godly Agreement entirely according to your Power bâ—th to God the Holy Church the Clergie and the People Rex I will keep it Archbishop Sir Will you to your Power cause Iustice Law and Discretion in Mercy and Truth to be executed in all your â—udgments Rex I will Archbishop Sir Will you grant to hold and grant to keep the Laws and rightful Customs which the Commâ—nalâ—y of this your Kingdom have and will you deâ—end and uphold them to the honour of God so much as in you lieth Rex I grant and promise so to do Then one of the Bishops reads this Admonition to the King before the People with a loud voice Our Lord and King we beseech you to pardon and to grant and to preserve unto us and
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
against him certain Articles in the House of Peers in which he accused him of the like Crime in reference to his Actings in the Spanish business This made good sport amongst the Commons for a time but at last sâ—aring either the Weakness of Bristol's Charge or the insufficiency of his Proofs they resolved to follow their own way and to that end a large Impeachment was drawn up against him and presented to the Lords on the eighth of May managed by six of the ablest Lawyers in the House that is to say Glanvile Herbert Selden Pym Wansford and Sherland the Prologue made by Sir Dudly Diggs and the Epilogue by Sir Iohn Eliot The principal Branches of this Impeachment related to his engrossing of Offices his buying the Places of Lord Admiral and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports His not guarding the Seas His stay of a Ship called the St. Peter of Newhaven and of the East-India Fleet Lending his Majesties Ship called the Vantgard to the French King which the French King employed against Rochel His selling of Honours and Offices procuring Honours for his Kindred His diminishing the Revenues of the Crown and his applying Physick to King Iames in the time of his Sickness To every one of these there was returned in Writing a particular Answer by the Duke himself And then addressing his Discourse unto the Peers he humbly referred it to their Judgment how full of danger and prejudice it was to give too ready an ear and too easie a belief unto a Report or Testimony without Oath which are not of weight enough to condemn any With like humility he acknowledged how easie a thing it was for him in his younger years and unexperienced to fall into thousands of Errors in thâ—se ten years wherein he had the honour to serve so great and so open-hearted a Sovereign Master But still he hoped the fear of God his sincerity in the true Religion established in the Church of England though accompanied with many weaknesses and imperfections which he is not ashamed humbly and heartily to confess his carefulness not willingly to offend so good and gracious a Master and his love and duty to his Country had restrained and preserved him from running into any hainous misdemeanours and crimes Which said and having craved the benefit of two several Pardons the one granted in the last Parliament of King Iames the other at the Coronation of King Charles he added That he could not chuse but hope so much in their Lordships Justice and Honour that they would acquit him of and from those Misdemeanours Offences Misprisions and Crimes wherewith he had bee charged and for his own part he both hoped and would daily pray That for the future he might so watch over all his Actions both publick and private as not to give cause of just offence to any person Of these Proceedings his Majesty was exceeding sensible He saw himself wounded through the Dukes sides That his Fathers Favours and his own were the greatest Crimes of which the Duke had been impeached and That their Regal Authority in bestowing Offices and Honours on whom they pleased was not only questioned but controlled With which disturbances being very much perplex'd and troubled he receives a Letter written to him from an unknown Person in which he first met with a Recital of the several Interests and Affections which were united in this Prosecution against the Duke and after that this Application to himself and his own Concernments viz. These men saith the Writer of the Letter either cannot or will not remember That never any noble man in favour with his Sovereign was questioned in Parliament except by the King himself in case of Treason or unless it were in the nonage and tumultuary times of Richard the Second Henry vi or Edward vi which hapned to the destruction both of King and Kingdom And that not to exceed our own and Fathers Memory in King Henry viii his time Wolseys exorbitant Power and Pride and Cromwels contempt of the Nobility and the Laws were not yet permitted to be discussed in Parliament though they were most odious and grievous to all the Kingdom And that Leicesters undeserved Favour and Faults Hattons insufficiency and Releighs Insolencies far exceed what yet hath been objected against the Duke yet no Lawyer durst abet nor any man else begin any Invectives against them in Parliament And then he adds some other Passages intervening That it behoves his Majesty to uphold the Duke against them who if he be but discourted it will be the Corner stone on which the demolishing of his Monarchy will be builded For if they prevail with this they have hatched a thousand other Demands to pull the Feathers of the Royalty they will appoint him Counsellors Servants Alliances Limits of his Expences Accounts of his Revenue chiefly if they can as they mainly desire they will now dazle him in the beginning of his Reign How true a Prophet this man proved the event hath shewed and the King saw it well enough and therefore since he could not divert them from that pursuit on the 15th of Iune he dissolved the Parliament I have been the more punctual and particular in relating these Proceedings of the Commons against the Duke by reason of that Influence which Laud either had or is reported to have had in managing his Cause against them For first it is affirmed by the Publisher of this Bishops Breviate That the Copy of the Kings Speech made in behalf of the Duke March 29. was of Lauds enditing and That the Original Copy thereof under his own hand was given in evidence against him at the time of Trial. Secondly That he likewise penned the Kings Speech to the House of Peers touching the Duke and the Commitment of the Earl of Arundel May the 11th In which he spake concerning the preservation of the Honour of Noblemen against the vile and detestable Calumnies of those of the Lower House by whom the Duke had been accused as before was said Most grievous Crimes indeed if they had been true for a Subject to assist his Prince and a Servant to be aiding to his Master in penning a short Speech or two when either the pressure of Affairs or perplexities of minde might require it of him But for the truth of this there is no proof offered but that the Copies of both Speeches the Original Copies as he calls them were found in the Archbishops Study as probably they might have been in the Studies of many other men if they had been searched For who can rationally suppose That his Majesty who was the Master of such a pure and elegant Style as he declared himself to be in his Discourse with Henderson at Newcastle and his Divine Essays made in Prison when he could have no other helps but what he found in himself should stand in need of the Expressions of another man in matters of so great concernment Or if it be to be
supposed it makes exceedingly to the honour and commendation of this our Bishop as well in point of Secrecy as unfeigned Fidelity that his Majesty should pick out him from all other men to be his Pen-man or Chief Secretary in such weighty businesses Then again it is affirmed That he not only corrected and amended the Dukes Answer to the Impeachment which was made against him by the Commons but that he also penned that Speech which the Duke subjoined unto his Answer A Crime of the same nature and proved by the same Mediums as the others was and such as rather might have served for a strong assurance both of his honest Fidelity to his Friend and Patron and the even temper of his own mind in the managing of it For if we may believe the Author of the first History of the Life and Reign of King Charles as I think we may this Answer of the Duke was so in-laid with Modesty and Humility that it became a new Grievance to his Adversaries and was like to have a powerful influence toward the conversion of many who expected a Defence of another and more disdainful Spirit Thus have we brought two Parliaments unto an end but we hear nothing of the Convocations which were summoned with them Nothing indeed of the first Convocation but the passing of a Grant for three Subsidies toward the Advancement of his Majesties Service In the second we find something more though no Subsidies are granted in it On the fifth Sunday in Lent Goodman then Bishop of Glocester preach'd before his Majesty and press'd so hard upon the Point of the Real Presence that he was supposed to trench too neer the borders of Popery which raised a great clamour both in Court and Country The matter of which Sermon was agitated pro and con in the Convocation March 29. without determining any thing on either side But his Majestie out of a desire to satisfie both himself and his Houses of Parliament touching that particular referred the consideration of it to Abbot Archbishop of Canterbury Andrews Bishop of Winchester and Laud Bishop of St. Davids who meeting and considering of it on the twelfth of April returned this Answer to the King That some things in that Sermon had been spoke less warily but nothing falsly That nothing had been innovated by him in the Doctrine of the Church of England But howsoever That they thought very fit that Goodman should be appointed to Preach again before his Majesty for the better explaining of his meaning and shewing how and in what Particulars he had been mistaken by his Auditors Which he accordingly performed But nothing was of such concernment to a Convocation as the cause of Mountague vexed and molested by the Commons in both the Parliaments for supposed Popery and Arminianism matters meerly Doctrinal And possibly it may be admired that they should do nothing in a matter of their own peculiar having his Majesty to Friend for it appears in the Letter of the three Bishops before-mentioned to the Duke of Buckingham That his Majesty had taken that business into his own care and had most worthily referred it in a right course to Church-consideration And it appears also by the Breviate pag. 8. That on Sunday April 22. of this present year his Majesty had commanded all the Bishops to come before him and reprehended such as came being fourteen in number for being silent in Causes which concerned the Church and had not made known unto him what might be profitable or unprofitable for it the Cause whereof he was so ready to promote But then we are to call to mind that Laud not long since had been sent by the Duke of Buckingham to consult with Andrews and learn of him what he thought fitting to be done in the Cause of the Church and more especially in the Five Articles so hotly agitated between the Remonstrants and Contra-Remonstrants in the Belgick Provinces And it appears by the event That Andrews did not hold it fit for any thing to be done in that particular as the case then stood the truth in those Opinions not being so generally entertained amongst the Clergy nor the Archbishop and the greater part of the Prelates so inclinable to them as to venture the determining of those Points to a Convocation But that which was not thought fit in that present Conjuncture for a Convocation his Majesty was pleased to take order in by his Royal Edict Many Books had been written against Mountague by Carleton Bishop of Chichester Sutcliffe Dean of Exeter Yates and Rouse by which the differences were rather increased than diminished Which coming to his Majesties notice it pleased him by the Advice of his Bishops to signifie by his Proclamation of Iune 14. Not only to his own People but to all the World his utter dislike of all those who to shew the subtilty of their Wits or to please their own Humours or vent their own Passions do or shall adventure to stir or move any new Opinions not only contrary but differing from the sound and Orthodoxal Grounds of the true Religion sincerely Professed and happily Established in the Church of England and also to declare his full and constant Resolution That neither in matter of Doctrine nor Discipline of the Church nor in the Government of the State he will admit of the least Innovation but by Gods assistance will so guide the Scepter of these his Kingdoms and Dominions by the Divine Providence put into his hand as shall be for the comfort and assurance of his sober Religious and well-affected Subjects and for the repressing and severe punishing of such as out of any sinister respects or disaffection to his Person or Government shall dare either in Church or State to distract or disquiet the Peace thereof His Majesty thereupon commands all his Subjects the Clergy most especially both in England and Ireland That from thenceforth they should carry themselves so wisely warily and conscionably that neither by Writing Preaching Printing Conferences or otherwise they raise any doubts or publish or maintain any new Inventions or Opinions concerning Religion than such as are clearly grounded and warranted by the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England heretofore published and happily established by Authority Straightly charging all Archbishops and Bishops in their several Diocesses as also all Counsellors of State Judges and Ministers of Justice speedily to reclaim and repress all such Spirits as shall adventure hereafter to break this Rule of Sobriety and due Obedience to his Majesty his Laws and this Religious Duty to the Church of God or in the least degree attempt to violate this bond of Peace adding withal this intimation of his Royal Pleasure That whosoever from thenceforth should take the boldness wilfully to neglect this his Majesties gracious Admonition and either for the satisfying of their unquiet and restless Spirits or for expressing of their rash and undutiful Insolencies should wilfully break that
goes a little further and tells us of him That the World wanted Learning to know how Learned he was so skilled in all especially Oriental Languages that some conceive he might if then living almost have served as an Interpreter-General at the Confusion of Tongues In his life time he only published two Books in Latin viz. His Apologie against Cardinal Bellarmine and that which he called Tortura Torti in behalf of King Iames and a small Tract entituled Determinatio Theologica de jure-jurando exigendo quarto Printed at London 1593. And in English nothing but a small Volume of Sermons which he acknowledged for his own The Book of Catechetical Doctrine published in his life by others but without his privity and consent he always professedly disavowed as containing only some imperfect Collections which had been taken from his mouth by some ignorant hand when he was Reader of the Catechism Lecture in Pembroke Hall But after his decease ninety six of his Sermons were collected with great care and industry published in Print and Dedicated to his Sacred Majesty by Laud then Bishop of London and Buckeridge at that time Bishop of Ely 1628. For Felton of Ely dying the year before Buckeridge had been translated thither by the Power and Favour of that his dear Friend and quondam Pupil Curle Dean of Litchfield and one of the Residentiaries of Salisbury succeeding after his Translation in the See of Rochester By the same hands some other Pieces of his both in English and Latin were very carefully drawn together and published with the like Dedication to his Sacred Majesty Anno 1629. He that desires to hear more of him let him first consult the Funeral Sermon before mentioned extant at the end of the great Volume of his Sermons and afterwards peruse his Epitaph in the Church of St. Maries Over-rhe transcribed in Stows Survey of London of the last Edition After his death the See of Winton was kept vacant till the latter end of the year next following the profits of it being in the mean time taken up for his Majesties use and answered into the Exchequer according to an ancient Custom but more old than commendable used frequently by the Kings of England since the time of William sirnamed Rufus from whom it is said to have took beginning But the Deanry of the Chappel had not been void above nine days when Laud was nominated to it and was actually admitted into that Office on the sixth day of October following by Philip Earl of Montgomery Lord Chamberlain of his Majesties Houshold before whom he took the usual and appointed Oath He had before observed a Custom as ill though not so old as the other used in the Court since the first entrance of King Iames. The Custom was That at what part soever of the Publick Prayers the King came into his Closet which looked into the Chappel to hear the Sermon the Divine Service was cut off and the Anthem sung that the Preacher might go into the Pulpit This the new Dean disliked as he had good reason and thereupon humbly moved his Majesty that he would be present at the Liturgie as well as the Sermon every Lords day and that at whatsoever part of Prayers he came the Priest who Ministred should proceed to the end of the Service To which his Majesty most readily and religiously condescended and gave him thanks for that his seasonable and pious Motion As for the Deanry of the Chappel it was of long standing in the Court but had been discontinued from the death of Dr. George Carew Dean of Windsor the Father of George Lord Carew of Clopton and Earl of Totness Anno 1572. till King Iames his coming to this Crown at what time Bancroft then Bishop of London conceiving into what dangers the Church was like to run by the multitude of Scots about him thought it expedient that some Clergy-men of Note and Eminence should be attendant always in and about the Court And thereupon it was advised that to the Bishop Almoner and the Clerk of the Closet a Dean of the Chappel should be added to look unto the diligent and due performance of Gods Publick Service and order matters of the Quire According to which resolution Dr. Iames Mountague was recommended to the King for the first Dean of the Chappel in his time succeeded in that place by Andrews and he now by Laud. But to proceed Whilest matters went on thus smoothly about the Court they met with many Rubbs in the Country some of the Preachers did their parts according as they were required by the said Instructions amongst whom Sibthorp Vicar of Brackly in Northampton-shire advanced the Service in a Sermon preached by him at the Assizes for that County The scope of which Sermon was to justifie the Lawfulness of the general Loane and of the Kings imposing Taxes by his own Regal Power without consent in Parliament and to prove that the people in point of Conscience and Religion ought chearfully to submit to such Loans and Taxes without any opposition The Licencing of which Sermon when it was offered to the Press being refused by Archbishop Abbot and some exceptions made against it the perusing of it was referred to Laud April 24. 1627 by whom after some qualifications and corrections it was approved and after published by the Author under the name of Apostolical Obedience About the same time Manwaring Doctor in Divinity one of his Majesties Chaplains in Ordinary and Vicar of the Parish Church of St. Giles in the Fields published two Sermons of his preaching on the same occasion the one before the King the other in the hearing of his own Parishioners These Sermons he entituled by the name of Religion and Allegiance both of them tending to the justification of the lawfulness of the Kings imposing Loans and Taxes on his people without consent in Parliament and that the imposition of such Loans and Taxes did so far bind the Consciences of the Subjects of this Kingdom that they could not refuse the payment of them without peril of eternal damnation But neither the Doctrine of these Preachers or of any other to that purpose nor the distress of the King of Denmark nor the miserable estate of Rochel did so far prevail amongst the people but that the Commissioners for the Loane found greater opposition in it than they did expect Many who had been Members in the two former Parliaments opposed it with their utmost power and drew a great part of the Subjects in all Countries some to the like refusal For which refusal some Lords and many of the choice Gentry of the Kingdom and others of inferiour sort were committed unto several Prisons where they remained till the approach of the following Parliament Insomuch that the Court was put upon the necessity of some further Project The Papists would have raised a Provision for the setting forth both of Ships and Men for the defence of the Narrow Seas and working
great men about the Court for revealing the Kings Secrets committed to his trust and privacy contrary to the Oath taken by him as a Privy Counsellor The Bishop was conceived to live at too great a height to be too popular withal and thereby to promote the Puritan Interest against the Counsels of the Court This Information was laid hold on as a means to humble him to make him sensible of his own duty and the Kings displeasure and a Command is given to Noy then newly made his Majesties Atturney-General to file a Bill and prosecute against him in the Star-Chamber upon this delinquency Though the Bishop about two or three years since had lost the Seal yet he was thought to have taken the Purse along with him reputed rich and one that had good Friends in the Court about the King which made him take the less regard of this prosecution By the Advice of his Counsel he first demurred unto the Bill and afterwards put in a strong Plea against it both which were over-ruled by Chief Justice Richardson to whom by Order of the Court they had been referred Which artifices and delays though they gained much time yet could he not thereby take off the edge of the Atturney grown so much sharper toward him by those tricks in Law And in this state we shall finde the business about ten years hence when it came to a Sentence having laid so much of it here together because the occasion of the Suit was given much about this time About the same time also came out a Book entituled A Collection of Private Devotions or the Hours of Prayer composed by Cozens one of the Prebends of Durham at the Request and for the Satisfaâ—ction as it was then generally believed of the Countess of Denbigh the only Sister of the Duke and then supposed to be unsetled in the Religion here established if not warping from it A Book which had in it much good matter but not well pleasing in the form said in the Title page to be framed agreeably to a Book of Private Prayers Authorized by Queen Elizabeth Anno 1560. After the Kalendar it began with a Specification of the Apostles Creed in Twelve Articles the Lords Prayer in Seven Petitions the Ten Commandements with the Duties enjoined and the Sins prohibited by them The Precepts of Charity The Precepts of the Church The Seven Sacraments The Three Theological Virtues The Three kinds of Good Works The Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost The Twelve Fruits of the Holy Ghost The Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy The Eight Beatitudes Seven deadly Sins and their contrary Vertues and the Quatuor novissima After which some Prefaces and Introductions intervening followed the Forms of Prayer for the first third sixth and ninth Hours as also for the Vespers and Compline known here in former Times by the vulgar name of Canonical Hours Then came the Litany The Seven Penitential Psalms Preparatory Prayers for Recâ—iving the Holy Communion Prayers to be used in time of Sickness and of the near approach of Death besides many others The Book approved by Mountain then Bishop of London and by him Licenced for the Press with the Subscription of his own hand to it Which notwithstanding it startled many at the first though otherwise very moderate and sober men who looked upon it as a Preparatory to usher in the Superstitions of the Church of Rome The Title gave offence to some by reason of the correspondence which it held with the Popish Horaries but the Frontispiece a great deal more on the top whereof was found the Name of IESVS figured in three Capital Letters IHS with a Cross upon them incircled with the Sun supported by two Angels with two devout Women praying toward it It was not long before it was encountred by Prynne and Burton of whom we shall have occasion to speak more hereafter Prynn's Book for of the other there was but little notice taken was Printed by the name of A Brief Survey and Censure of Cozens his Cozening Devotions Anno 1628. In which he chargeth it for being framed in general according to the Horaries and Primers of the Church of Rome but more particularly to be directly moulded framed and contrived according to Our Ladies Primer or Office Printed in Latin at Antwerp 1593. and afterwards in Latin and English Anno 1604. Next he objects That the Book of Latin Prayers published by Queen Elizabeth 1560. was called Orarium not Horarium sive Libellus Precationum that is to say A Book of Prayers That in that Book there was mention of no other hours of Prayer than first third and ninth and that in the second and third Editions of the same Book published in the years 1564. and 1573. there occurred no such distribution into hours at all which said he reproacheth all the Specifications before-remembred by the name of Popish trash and trumpery stollen out of Popish Primers and Catechisms not mentioned in any Protestant Writers and then proceeds to the canvasing of every Office and the Prefaces belonging to them which with the like infallible Spirit he condemns of Popery But for all this violent opposition and the great clamors made against it the Book grew up into esteem and justified it self without any Advocate insomuch that many of those who first startled at in regard of the Title found in the body of it so much Piety such regular Forms of Divine Worship such necessary Consolations in special Exigencies that they reserved it by them as a Jewel of great Price and value But of this Author and his Book the following Parliament to whom Prynne dedicates his Answer will take further notice But before that Parliament begins we must take notice of some Changes then in agitation amongst the Governours of the Church His Majesty in the Iune foregoing had acquainted Laud with his intent of nominating him to the See of London in the place of Mountain whom he looked on as a man unactive and addicted to voluptuousness and one that loved his ease too well to disturbe himself in the concerments of the Church He also looked upon that City as the Retreat and Receptacle of the Grandees of the Puritan Faction the influence which it had by reason of its Wealth and Trading on all parts of the Kingdom and that upon the Correspondence and Conformity thereof the welfare of the whole depended No better way to make them an example of Obedience to the rest of the Subjects then by placing over them a Bishop of such Parts and Power as they should either be unable to withstand or afraid to offend In order unto this design it was thought expedient to translate Neile whose accommodations Laud much studied to the See of Winchester then vacant by the death of Andrews and to remove Mountain unto Durham in the place of Neile But the putting of this design into execution did require some time Such Officers of State as had the management of the Kings
to the Peers on the twelfth of May That by shewing the cause of the Commitment the whole Service many times might happen to be destroyed and that the cause also might be such and of a nature so transcending the Rules of Law that the Judges had no capacity in a Court of Judicature to determine in it The intermitting of which power being one of the constant Rules of Government practised for so many Ages within this Kingdom would as he said soon dissolve the very frame and foundation of his Monarchy and therefore that with out the overthrow of his Soveraignty he could not suffer these powers to be impeached But what reason soever he had to alledge for himself he was so bent on his desires to relieve the Rochellers and keep that honour up abroad which he lost at home that at the last he condescended unto their desires and confirmed the prayer of their Petition by Act of Parliament Nor would they rest upon that point They thought they had not done themselves right enough in disputing their Property with the King in Parliament if they suffered it to be preached down in the Court and Country Manwaring therefore of whose Sermons we have spake before must be brought in for an example unto others Whose charge being drawn up by the Commons was reported to the Peers by Pym Iune 13. The Book of his two Sermons produced before them the passages which gave offence openly read and aggravated to the very height And though the poor man on his knees with tears in his eyes and sorrows in his heart had most humbly craved pardon of the Lords and Commons for the errors and indiscretions he had committed in the said two Sermons yet could he find no other mercy than 1. To be imprisoned during the pleasure of the House 2. To be fined one thousand pounds to the King 3. To make such an acknowledgment of his offence at the Commons Bar as it should please them to prescribe 4. To be suspended from his Ministry for three years to come 5. To be disabled from ever preaching at the Court 6. To be uncapable of any further Ecclesiastical preferment or secular Office And finally That his Majesty should be moved to call in the said Book by Proclamation and cause it to be publickly burnt An heavy Sentence I confess but such as did rather affright than hurt him For his Majesty looking on him in that conjuncture as one that suffered in his cause preferred him first to the Parsonage of Stamford-Rivers in Essex void not long after by the promotion of Mountague to the See of Chichesâ—er afterwards to the Deanry of Worcester and finally to the Bishoprick of St. Davids This was indeed the way to have his Majesty well served but such as created some ill thoughts amongst the Commons for his Majesties Indulgence to him But they had a greater game to fly at than to content themselves with so poor a Sacrifice The day before complaint was made unto the Commons that Laud Bishop of Bath and Wells had warranted those Sermons to the Press and him they had as good a mind â—o as to any other There had been some liftings at him in the Court by Sir Iohn Cook who had informed against him to the Lord Treasurer then being And by the Lord Treasurer to the Duke where the business stopt And there had been some liftings at him in the Country also there being some mutterings spread abroad that some Sacrifices must be made for expiating the ill success in the Isle of Rhe and that he was as like as any to be made the Sacrifice Which comming to his ears from two several persons he thought fit to acquaint his Majesty with it who thereupon returned this most gracious answer That he should not trouble himself with such reports till he saw him forsake his other friends Had he stood still upon that principle he had never fallen Such Princes as forsake their Servants will be forsaken by their Servants in their greatest need and neither be well served at home nor observed abroad But it appeared by the event that those mutterings were not made without some ground and that somewhat was then plotting toward his destruction For Manwaring was no sooner censured but Lauds cause was called to the report some daies before viz. Iune 11. they had voted the Duke of Buckingham to be the cause of all the grievances and now they were hammering a Remonstrance both against him and all that depended on him In which Remonstrance having first besprinkled the King with some Court holy-water for granting their Petition of Right they make bold to represent unto him That there was a general fear conceived in his people of some secret working and combination to introduce into this Kingdom innovation and change of holy Religion Which fear proceeded as they said from the encrease of Popery in this Kingdom and the extraordinary favours and respects which they of that Religion found in the Court from persons of great quality and power there unto whom they continually resort more especially by name from the Countess of Buckingham the Dukes Mother Secondly From some Letters written by his Majesty to stop all legal proceedings against Recusants and the Compositions which had been made with some of them for such fines and penalties as were laid upon them by the Laws which seemed in their opinion little less than a Toleration Thirdly From the dayly growth and spreading of the Faction of the Arminians that being as they thought his Majesty knew but a cunning way to bring in Popery the professors of those opinions being common disturbers of the Protestant Churches and Incendiaries of those states wherein they have gotten any head being Protestants in shew but Iesuites in opinion and practice Of which growing Faction Neile Bishop of Winchester and Laud Bishop of Bath and Wells are named particularly for the principal Patrons Fourthly From some endeavours to suppress the diligent teaching and instructing the people in the true knowledge of Almighty God by disparaging pious painful and Orthodox Preachers Fifthly From the miserable condition of the Kingdom of Ireland in which without controule the Popish Religion is affirmed to be openly professed Popish Superstition being generally exercised and avowed Monasteries and Nunneries newly erected c In the last place they lay before him their former grievances now redressed the design of raising moneys by the way of Excise and of bringing in some Regiments of German horse though never put into execution a Commission of Lieutenancy granted to the Duke of Buckingham they supposed decay of Trade in all parts of the Kingdom the improvident consumption of the stock of Gunpowder the loss of the Regality of the Narrow Seas the taking of many Merchants Ships by the Pyrates of Dunkirk c. The cause of all which mischiefs is imputed to the excessive power of the Duke of Buckingham and his abusing of that power This Remonstrance being thus digested
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
the Ministers there might by degrees prepare the People to such impressions of Conformity as his Majesty by the Council and Consent of the rest of the Bishops should graciously be pleased to imprint upon them But such ill luck his Majesty had with that stubborn Nation that this was look'd upon also as a general Grievance and must be thought to aim at no other end than Tyranny and Popery and what else they pleased We have almost done our work in Scotland and yet hear nothing all this while of the Bishop of London not that he did not go the Journey but that there was little to be done at his being there but to see and be seen And yet it was a Journey which brought him some access of Honour and gave him opportunity of making himself known to those of best Quality of that Kingdom He had been in Scotland with King Iames but then he waited only as a private Chaplain He is now looked upon as the third Bishop of England in Place and the greatest in Power a Counsellor of State and the Kings great Favorite He entred Scotland as a Privy-Counsellor of England only but returned thence as a Counsellor for that Kingdom also to which Office he was sworn on the fifteenth of Iune Nor did he shew himself less able in that Church than in the Council-Chamber being appointed by his Majesty to Preach before him on the last of that Month in which some question may be made how he pleased the Scots although it be out of question that he pleased the King The greatest part of the following Iuly was spent in visiting the Country and taking a view of the chief Cities and most remarkable Parts and Places of it Which having seen he made a Posting Journey to the Queen at Greenwich whither he came on Saturday the twentieth of Iuly crossing the Water at Blackwall and looking towards London from no nearer distance But in this Act he laid aside the Majesty of his Predecessors especially of Queen Elizabeth of Famous Memory of whom it was observed That she did very seldom end any of her Summer Progresses but she would wheel about to some end of London to make her passage to Whitehall thorow some part of the City not only requiring the Lord Mayor and Aldermen in their Scarlet Robes and Chains of Gold to come forth to meet her but the several Companies of the City to attend solemnly in their Formalities as she went along By means whereof she did not only preserve that Majesty which did belong to a Queen of England but kept the Citizens and consequently all the Subjects in a reverent Estimation and Opinion of her She used the like Arts also in keeping up the Majesty of the Crown and Service of the City in the Reception and bringing in of Foreign Embassadors who if they came to London by Water were met at Gravesend by the Lord Mayor the Aldermen and Companies in their several Barges and in that Solemn manner conducted unto such Stairs by the Water side as were nearest to the Lodgings provided for them But if they were to come by Land they were met in the like sort at Shooters-Hill by the Mayor and Aldermen and thence conducted to their Lodgings the Companies waiting in the Streets in their several Habits The like she used also in celebrating the Obsequies of all Christian Kings whether Popish or Protestant with whom she was in Correspondence performed in such a Solemn and Magnificent manner that it preserved her in the estimation of all Foreign Princes though differing in Religion from her besides the great contentment which the People took in those Royal Pomps Some other Arts she had of preserving Majesty and keeping distance with her People yet was so popular withal when she saw her time that never Majesty and Popularity were so matched together But these being laid aside by King Iames who brooked neither of them and not resumed by King Charles who loved them not much more than his Father did there followed first a neglect of their Persons which Majesty would have made more Sacred and afterwards a mislike of their Government which a little Popularity would have made more grateful Laud having no such cause of hastning homewards returned not to his House at Fulham till the twenty sixth of the same Month But he came time enough to hear the news of Abbot's Sickness and within few days after of his Death which hapned on Sunday morning the fourth of August and was presently signified to the King being â—hen at Greenwich A man he was that had tasted both of good and ill Fortune in extremes affirmed by the Church Historian for I shall only speak him in the words of others to be a grave man in his Conversation and unblameable in his Life but said withal to have been carried with non amavit gentem nostram forsaking the Birds of his own feather to fly with others and generally favouring the Laity above the Clergie in all Cases which were brought before him Conceived by one of our State Historians to be too facil and yielding in the exercising of his Function by whom it also affirmed That his extraordinary remisness in not exacting strict Conformity to the prescribed Orders of the Church in point of Ceremony seemed to resolve those legal Determinations to their first Principle of Indifferency and to lead in such an habit of Inconformity as the future reduction of those tender-conscienc'd men to long discontinued Obedience was interpreted an Innovation By the first Character we find what made him acceptable amongst the Gentry by the last what made him grateful to the Puritan in favour of which men he took so little care of the great Trust committed to him and gave them so many opportunities of increasing both in Power and Numbers that to stop tâ—em in their full career it was found necessary to suspend him from his Metropolitical Jurisdiction as before was noted It is reported That as Prince Henry his Majesty then Duke of Yorke Archbishop Abbot with many of the Nobility were waiting in the Privy Chamber for the coming out of King Iames the Prince to put a jest on the Duke his Brother took the Archbishops Square Cap out of his hands and put it on his Brothers head telling him that if he continued a good Boy and followed his Book he would one day make him Archbishop of Canterbury Which the Child took in such disdain that he threw the Cap upon the ground and trampled it under his feet not being without much difficulty and some force taken off from that eagerness This though first it was not otherwise beheld than as an Act of Childish Passion yet when his Brother Prince Henry died and that he was Heir apparent to the Crown it was taken up by many zealous Church-men for some ill presage unto the Hierarchy of Bishops the overthrow whereof by his Act and Power did seem to be fore-signified by it But as
Noble Houses which made them the more insolent and uncontrollable That the Pope had erected an University in Dublin to confront his Majesties Colledge there and breed up the Youth of the Kingdom to his Devotion one Harris being Dean thereof who had dispersed a Scandalous Pamphlet against the Lord Primates Sermon preach'd at Wansteed one of the best Pieces that ever came from him Anno 1629. That since the Dissolving of their new Frieries in the City of Dublin they had Erected them in the Country and had brought the People to such a sottish negligence that they cared not to learn the Commandments as God spake and left them but flocked in Multitudes to the hearing of such Superstitious Doctrines as some of their own Priests were ashamed of That a Synodical Meeting of their Clergy had been held lately at Drogheda in the Province of Vlster in which it was decreed That it was not lawful to take the Oath of Allegiance And therefore That in such a conjuncture of Affairs to think that the bridle of the Army might be taken away must be the thought not of a Brain-sick but of a Brainless man which whosoever did endeavour not only would oppose his Majesties Service but expose his own neck to the Skeanes of those Irish cut-throats All which he humbly refers to his Lordships seasonable Care and Consideration Upon this Information the Deputy obtains his Majesties leave to hold a Parliament in that Kingdom which he managed with such notable dexterity that he made himself Master of a Power sufficient to suppress the Insolencies of the Papists and yet exceedingly prevailed upon their Affections From which time forwards the Popish Recusants in that Kingdom were kept in stricter duty and held closer to loyal Obedience for fear of irritating so severe a Magistrate than ever they had been by any of his Predecessors This Parliament brought with it a Convocation as a thing of course and in that somewhat must be done to check the spreading of Calvinism in all parts of that Church The Articles of Religion agreed upon in Convocation Anno 1615. were so contrived by Vsher the now Lord Primate That all the Sabbatarian and Calvinian Rigours were declared therein to be the Doctrines of that Church Most grievous Torments immediately in his Soul affirmed to be endured by Christ which Calvin makes to be the same with his descent into Hell The abstenencies from eating Flesh upon certain days declared not to be Religious Fasts but to be grounded only upon Politick Ends and Considerations All Ministers adjudged to be Lawfully called who are called unto the Work of the Ministry by those that have Publick Authority given them in the Church but whether they be Bishops or not it makes no matter so that he be Authorized unto it by their several Churches The Sacerdotal Power of Absolution made declarative only and consequently quite subverted No Power ascribed unto the Church in Ordaining Canons or censuring any of those who either carelesly or maliciously do infringe the same the Pope made Antichrist according to the like Determination of the French Hugonots made at Gappe in Dolphine And finally such a silence concerning the Consecration of Archbishops and Bishops expresly justified and avowed in the English Book as if there were not a different Order from the Common Presbyters All which being Vsher's own Opinions were dispersed in several places of these Articles for the Church of Ireland approved of in that Convocation and finally confirmed by the Lord Deputy Chichester in the Name of King Iames. By means whereof these two great mischiefs did ensue First A great matter of division which it caused to the Priests and Papists of the Realm that in three Kingdoms under the Obedience of one Sovereign Prince there should be three distinct and contrary Professions and yet pretending every one to the same Religion And secondly Whensoever the Points were agitated here in England against the Sabbatarian and Calvinian Rigours the Disputants were forthwith choaked by the Authority of these Articles and the infallible Judgment of King Iames who confirmed the same If therefore the Archbishop meant to have Peace in England the Church of Ireland must be won to desert those Articles and receive ours in England in the place thereof This to effect it was not thought expedient by such as had the managing of that design to propose any abrogation or repealing of the former Articles which had so many Friends and Patrons in that Convocation that it was moved severally both in the House of the Bishops and in that of the Clergy to have them ratified and confirmed in the present Meeting And questionless it had been carried in that way if it had not seasonably been diverted by telling the Promoters of it That those Articles had already received as much Authority as that Church could give them and that by seeking to procure any such Confirmation they would weaken the Original Power by which they stood This blow being thus handsomly broken their next work was to move the Primate That for the avoiding of such scandal which was given the Papists and to declare the Unity in Judgment and Affections between the Churches a Canon might be passed in approbation of the Articles of the Church of England To this the Prelate being gained the Canon was drawn up and presented to him and being by him propounded was accordingly passed one only man dissenting when it came to the Vote who had pierced deeper into the bottom of the Project than the others did It was desired also by Bramhall not long before the Lord Deputies Chaplain but then Bishop of Derrie That the whole Body of Canons made in the year 1603. might be admitted in that Church But the Primate was ever so afraid of bowing at the Name of IESVS and some other Reverences required in them which he neither practised nor approved that he would by no means hearken to it which bred some heats between him and Bramhall ending at last in this Temperament That some select Canons should be taken out of that Book and intermingled with some others of their own composing But for the Canon which approved and received the Articles of the Church of England it was this that followeth viz. Of the Agreement of the Church of England and Ireland in the Profession of the same Christian Faith FOr the manifestation of our Agreement with the Church of England in the Confession of the same Christian Faith and Doctrine of the Sacraments We do receive and approve the Book of Articles of Religion agreed upon by the Archbishops and Bishops and the whole Clergie in whole Convocation holden at London Anno Dom. 1562. for the avoiding of diversities of Opinions and for the establishing of Consent touching true Religion And therefore if any hereafter shall affirm That any of those Articles are in any part Superstitious and Erroneous or such as he may not with a good Conscience Subscribe unto Let him be Excommunicated
and not Absolved before he make a publick Revocation of his Error Such was the Canon passed in this Convocation for the approbation and reception of the Articles of the Church of England Which Canon was no sooner passed confirmed and published but the Primate and his Party saw the danger which they had cast themselves into by their inadvertency and found too late That by receiving and approving the English Articles they had abrogated and repealed the Irish. To salve this sore it concerned them to bestir themselves with their utmost diligence and so accordingly they did For first the Primate and some Bishops of his opinions required subscription to the Articles of both Churches of all such as came to be ordained at the next Ordination But it went no further than the next for if the Papists made it a matter of Derision to have three Confessions in the three Churches of his Majesties Kingdoms How much more matter must it give them of scorn and laughter that there should be two different Confessions in the same Church and both subscribed unto but as one and the same The Primate next applies himself to the Lord Deputy beseeching him that the former Articles might receive a new Ratification by Act of Parliament for preventing all innovations in the Religion there established But he found but little comfort there the Lord Deputy threatning to cause the said Confession to be burnt by the hand of the hangman if at the least the Scots Commissioners may be believed amongst whose Articles against him I find this for one Finding no better hopes on that side of the Sea he dispatcheth his Letters of Advice to his Friends in England one to an Honourable Person amongst the rest assuring them that though by a Canon passed in that Convocation they had received and approved the Articles of England yet that the Articlers of Ireland were ever called in might well be reckoned for a fancy The like affirmed in a Certificate made by Bernard and Pullen two Members of the Lower House in this Convocation where it is said That whosoever do aver that the said Articles were abolished are grosly mistaken and have abused the said Convocation in delivering so manifest an untruth And to back this another Certificate must be gained from one who comes commended to us under the Title of a most eminent judicious and learned person who having considered of the matter Conceives that both Confessions were consistent and that the Act of the Synod was not a Revocation of the Irish Articles but an approbation of the English as agreeing with them But all this would not serve the turn or save those Articles from being brought under a Repeal by the present Canon For first it appeareth by the Canon That they did not only approve but receive the Articles of the Church of England Their approbation of them had they gone no further had been a sufficient manifestation of their agreement with the Church of England in the Confession of the same Protestant Religion But their receiving of the same doth intimate a superinducing of them upon the other and is equivalent both in Fact and Law to the Repealing of the old For otherwise St. Paul must needs be out in the Rules of Logick when he proved the Abrogating of the old Covenant by the superinduction of a new For having affirmed that God by speaking of a New Covenant had antiquated and made void the first or made the first old as our English read it he adds immediatly That that which is old decayeth and is ready to vanish away that is to say as Diodati descants on it The old being disanulled by the new there must necessarily follow the abolishment of its use and practice Nor find they any other abrogation of the Iewish Sabbath then by the superinducing of the Lords day for the day of worship By means whereof the Sabbath was lessened in authority and reputation by little and little and in short time was absolutely laid aside in the Church of Christ the fourth Commandement by which it was at first ordained being still in force So then according to these grounds the Articles of Ireland were virtually though not formally abrogated or else it must be granted that there were two Confessions in the same one Church different both in form and matter and contrary in some points unto one another which would have been so far from creating an uniformity between the Churches in the concernments of Religion that it would have raised a greater disagreement within Ireland it self than was before between the Churches of both Kingdoms And certainly the gaining of this point did much advantage the Archbishop conducing visibly to the promotion of his ends and Counsels in making the Irish Clergy subject to the two Declarations and accountable for their breaking and neglect thereof that is to say his Majesties Declaration about Lawful Sports and that prefixt before the book of Articles for appeasing Controversies Take for a farewell this acknowledgment of a late Historian speaking as well the sense of others as his own A Convocation concurrent with a Parliament was called saith he and kept at Dublin in Ireland wherein the thirty nine Articles of the Church of England were received in Ireland for all to subscribe unto It was adjudged fit seeing that Kingdom complies with England in the Civil Government it should also conform thereunto in matters of Religion And thereupon he thus concludes That in the mean time the Irish Articles concluded formerly in a Synod 1616. mistaken for 1615. wherein Arminianism was condemned in terminis terminantibus and the observation of the Lords day resolved Iure divino were utterly excluded But leaving Ireland to the care of the Lord Deputy and the Bishop of Derry who under him had the chief managing of the affairs of that Church let us see how the new Archbishop proceeds in England where he had so many plows going at once too many as it after proved to work well together For not thinking he had done enough in order to the peace and uniformity of the Church of England by taking care for it here at home his thoughts transported him with the like affection to preserve it from neglect abroad To which end he had offered some considerations to the Lords of the Council as before was said Anno 1622. relating to the regulation of Gods publick Worship amongst the English Factories and Regiments beyond the Seas and the reducing of the French and Dutch Churches settled in divers parts of this Realm unto some conformity In reference to the first he had not sate long in the Chaire of Canterbury when he procured an Order from the Lords of the Council bearing date Octob. 1. 1633. By which their English Churches and Regiments in Holland and afterwards by degrees in all other Foreign parts and plantations were required strictly to observe the English Liturgie with all the Rites and Ceremonies prescribed in it
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
after his being named to a Bishoprick or a better Deanry to renew any Lease either into lives or years His Majesty having well observed that at such times of remove many men care not what or how they let their Estates to the prejudice of the Church and their Successors Which Letters bear date at Greenwich in the twelfth year of his Reign Iune 27. Nor was he less careful to preserve the Parochial Clergy from being oppressed by their neighbours in rates and taxes than he had been in maintaining the Estates of Capitular bodies for the greater honour of those bodies at the present time and the benefit of Succession for the time to come During the Remiss Government of King Iames his Majesties late embroylments with France and Spain and his entanglements at home the Hollanders had invaded the Regality of the Narrow Seas and questioned the property of his Dominion in the same not only growing to such an height of insolency as to dispute their striking Sail in passing by any of his Majesties Ships but publishing a Discourse in Latine called Mare Liberum in defence thereof These affronts occasioned Noy the Atturney Generall to put his Majesty in mind of setting out a strong power of Ships for the recovery of his Rights against all pretenders And the better to enable him for it adviseth him to set on foot the old Naval Aide required of the Subject by his Predecessors He was a man extremely well versed in old Records with which consulting frequently in the course of his studies he had excerpted and laid by many notes and precedents for the Kings levying of such Navil Aide upon the Subjects by his own Authority whensoever the preservation and safety of the Kingdom did require it of them which Notes and Precedents he had taken as they came in his way in small pieces of Paper most of them no bigger than ones hand he kept in the Coffin of a Pye which had been sent him by his Mother and kept there till the mouldiness and corruptibleness of it had perished many of his Papers And by these Notes it did appear that many times in the same years wherein the Kings had received Subsidies by way of Parliament they levied this Naval Aide by their own sole power For if as he discoursed it to me at his house near Brentford the King wanted money either to support his own expences or for the enlarging of his Dominions in Foreign Conquests or otherwise to advance his honour in the eye of the World good reason he should be beholden for it to the love of his People But if the Kingdom was in danger and that the safety of the Subject was concerned in the business he might and did raise such sums of money as he thought expedient for the preventing of the danger and providing for the publick safety of him and his Subjects According to which precedents he prepares a Writ by which his Majesty commandeth the Maritime Counties to provide a certain number of Ships for defence of the Kingdom prescribing to each Ship its several burden the number of Mariners and great Pieces of Ordnance with Victuals Arms and Ammunition thereunto proportioned The Subject not daring at the first to dispute the Command collected money for the Service according to the several rates imposed on them in their several Counties but dealt so unmercifully with the Clergy in the levying of it that they laid upon them generally the fifth or sixth part of the sum imposed The Ice thus broken and his Majesty finding that provision not sufficient to effect his purpose issued out his Writs in the next year after anno 1635. into all the Counties of the Kingdom for preparing of a Royal Fleet to be in readiness against the beginning of this year in which the Clergy were as like to suffer as before they did By the best was that they had not only a gracious Patron but a very powerful Mediatour Upon whose humble desire his Majesty was pleased to direct his Letters to all the Sheriffs in England respectively requiring them that no Tax should be laid upon any Clergy-man possest of a Parsonage above the tenth part of the Land-rate of their several Parishes and that consideration should be had of the poor Vicars in their several Parishes according to their small revenue compared with the Abilities of the Parishioners amongst whom they lived The whole Sum levied by this Tax amounted to 236000 li. or there abouts which comes not to 20000 li. a month and being instead of all other payments seemed to be no such heavy burthen as it was generally made by the Popular Party many of which quarrelled and and refused it But his Majesty was two just a Prince to exact any thing by power when he had neither Law nor Reason to make it good And therefore as he had the opinion of all his Judges subscribed by their hands for justifying the Legality of this Naval Tax amongst the Subjects so he thought fit to publish some defence of his Dominion Right and Soveraignty in the Narrow Seas for the satisfaction of his Neighbours Iohn Selden of the Inner Temple a name that stands in need of no titles of honour had written a Discourse in the time of King Iames which in answer to that of Grotius called Mare Liberum 〈◊〉 intituled by the name of Mare Clausum But stomacking the submission and acknowledgment which he was forced to make in the High Commission for publishing his book of Tythes and sensible of the smart which he had found from the Pens of Tillesly Montague and Nettles in their Answers to him he did not only suppress the â—ook which he had written in the Kings defence but carried an evil eye to the Court and Church for a long time after But being a man of great parts and eminent in the retired walks of Learning he was worth the gaining which Canterbury takes upon him and at last efâ—ecteth By his perswasion he not only perfected but published that laborious piece which he dedicated to his Majesty whose cause he pleaded By whom it was so well approved that he sent it by Sir William Beecher one of the Clerks of his Council to the Barons of the Exchequer in open Court by them to be laid up as a most inestimable Jewel amongst the choice Records which concerned the Crowns In this book which came out this year he first asserts the Soveraignty or Dominion of the Brittish Seas to the Crown of England And that being cleared he proved by constant and continual practice that the Kings of England used to levy money from the Subjects without help of Parliament for the providing of Ships and other necessaries to maintain the Soveraignty which did of right belong unto them This he brought down unto the times of King Henry the Second and might have brought it nearer to his own times had he been so pleased and thereby paved a plain way to the payment of Ship-money as
of particular Churches and of some Times only And 3. It in Points of Doctrine Whether such Points have been determined oâ— before in a General Council or in Particular Councils universally received and countenanced or are to be defined de novo on emergent Controversies And these Distinctions being thus laid I shall Answer briefly 1. If the things to be reformed be either Corruptions in Manners or neglect of Publick Duties to Almighty God Abuses either in Government or the Parties governing the King may do it of himself by his sole Authority The Clergy are beholden to him if he takes any of them along with him when he goes about it And if the Times should be so bad that either the whole body of the Clergy or any though the greatest part thereof should oppose him in it he may go forwards notwithstanding punishing such as shall gainsay him in so good a Work and compelling others And this I look on as a Power annexed to the Regal Diadem and so inseparably annexed that Kings could be no longer Kings iâ— it were denied them And on the other side if the Reformation be in Points oâ— Doctrine and in such Points of Doctrine as have not been before defined or not defined in form and manner as before laid down the King only with a few of his Bishops and Learned Clergy though never so well studied in the Point disputed can do nothing in it That belongs only to the whole body of the Clergy in their Convocation rightly called and constituted whose Acts being Ratified by the King bind not alone the rest of the Clergy in whose name they Voted but all the residue of the Subjects of what sort soever who are to acquiesce in their Resolutions But if the thing to be Reformed be a matter practical we are to look into the usage of the Primitive Times And if the Practice prove to have been both ancient and universally received over all the Church though intermitted for a Time and by Time corrupted the King consulting with so many of his Bishops and others of his most able Clergy as he thinks â—it to call unto him and having their Consent and Direction in it may in the case of intermission revive such Practice and in the case of corruption and degeneration restore it to its Primitive and Original Lustre Now that there should be Liturgies for the use of the Church And that those Liturgies should be Celebrated in a Language understood by the People That in those Liturgies there should be some prescribed Forms for Giving the Communion in both Kinds for Baptizing Infants for the reverent Celebration of Marriage performing the 〈◊〉 Office to the Sick and the decent Burial of the Dead as also for set Fasts and appointed Festivals hath been a thing of Primitive and General Practice in the best times of the Church And being such though intermitted and corrupted as before is said the King advising with his Bishops and other Church-men though not in a Synodical way may cause the same to be revised and revived and having fitted them to Edification and encrease of Piety either commend them to the Church by his sole Authority or else impose them on the People under certain Penalties by his Power in Parliament The Kingdom of Heaven said the Reverend Isidore of Sevil doth many times receive increase from these Earthly Kingdoms in nothing more than by regulating and well ordering of Gods Publick Worship Add hereunto what was before alledged for passing the Canons in the same way and then we have the sum of that which was and probably might have been pleaded in defence hereof The prosecution of this Liturgie on the one side and the exaction of those Publick Orders on the other kindled such fires in the breasts of some of the Puritan Faction that presently they brake out into open Flames For first the Scots scattered abroad a virulent and seditioâ—s Libel in the year 1634. wherein the King was not only charged with altering the Government of that Kingdom but traduced for very strong inclinations to the Religion of the Church of Rome The chief Abettor whereof for the Author was not to be found was the Lord Balmerino for which he was Legally convicted and condemned of Treason but pardoned by the Kings great Goodness and by that Pardon kept alive for the mischiefs following And as the English had Scotized in all their Practises by railing threatning and stirring up of Sedition for bringing in the Genevian Discipline in Queen Elizabeths Time so they resolve to follow their Example now Bastwick a Doctor of Physick the second part of Leighton first leads the Dance beginning with a Pestilent Pamphlet called Flagellum Episcoporum Latialium maliciously venomous against the Bishops their Function Actions and Proceedings But this not being likely to do much hurt amongst the People because writ in Latine he seconds it with another which he called his Litany in the English Tongue A Piece so silly and contemptible that nothing but the Sin and Malice which appeared in every line thereof could possibly have preserved it from being ridiculous Prynne follows next and publisheth two Books at once or one immediately on the other one of these called The Quench-Coal in answer unto that called A Coal from the Altar against placing the Communion-Table Altar-wise The other named The Vnbishoping of Timothy and Titus against the Apostolical Institution of Diocesan Bishops But that which was entituled to him by the name of a Libel was The News from Ipswich intended chiefly against Wren then Bishop of Norwich who had taken up his dwelling in that Town as before is said but falling as scandalously foul on the Archbishop himself and some of the other Bishops also and such as acted under them in the present Service For there he descants very trimly as he conceived on the Archbishop himself with his Arch-Piety Arch-Charity Arch-Agent for the Devil that Beelzebub himself had been Archbishop and the like to those a most triumphant Arch indeed to adorn his victories With like reproach he falls on the Bishops generally calling them Luciferian Lord Bishops execrable Traitors devouring Wolves with many other odious names not fit to be used by a Christian and more particularly on Wren telling us That in all Queen Maries times no such havock was made in so short a time of the faithful Ministers of God in any part nay in the whole Land than had been made in his Diocess And then he adds with equal Charity and Truth That Corbet Chancellor to this Bishop had threatned one or two godly Ministers with pistolling and hanging and I know not what because they had refused to read his Majesties Declaration about lawful Sports More of this dish I could have carved but that this may serve sufficiently for a taste of the whole But the great Master-piece of mischief was set out by Burton so often mentioned before who preaching on the fifth of November in his own Parish
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
same Month he gives Order for a General Assembly to be held at Glasco on November 21. next following in which he could not but be sure that after so many previous Condescensions on his part they would be able to do whatsoever they listed in defiance of him For before the Assembly was Indicted the Covenanters had so laid the Plot that none but those of their own Party should have Suffrage in it as afterwards by several Orders from their Tables they directed that no Chaplain nor Chapter-man nor any who have not subscribed the Covenant should be chosen to it not suffering the Archbishops or Bishops to sit as Moderators in their Presbyteries where the Elections were to pass and citing them to appear as Criminal Persons at the said Assembly by means of which Exclusions and Prelimitations the greatest part of the Assembly did consist of such as either were irregularly chosen by the over-ruling Voices of Lay-Elders which were thrust upon them or else not capable of being Elected some of them being under the Censures of the Kirk of Scotland others under the Censures of the Church of Ireland and some not having taken the Oath of Supremacy required by the Laws of the Land Upon which just and weighty Reasons as also the Admission of the Schismatical Clergy to sit as Judges over their Bishops the intrusion of so many Lay-Elders contrary to the Constitution of former General Assemblies the countenancing of a scandalous Libel against their Function and Persons and the prejudging of their Cause in their several Presbyteries by excluding them from having any Vote in the said Assembly when they were not present to interpose or speak any thing in their own behalf the Archbishops and Bishops in the name of themselves and all which did adhere unto them prepared their Declinator or Protestation against the said General Assembly and all the Acts and Conclusions of it as being void and null in Law to all intents and purposes whatsoever The day being come Hamilton marcheth to the place appointed for the Session in the equipage of a High-Commissioner the Sword and Seal being carried before him the Lords of the Council and all the Officers of State attending on him like a King indeed The reading of his Commission the putting in and rejecting of the Declinator the chusing of Henderson to be Moderator of the Assembly the constituting of the Members of it and some Debates touching the Votes and Suffrages challenged by Hamilton for such as were Assessors to him took up all the time between their first Meeting and their Dissolution which was by Proclamation solemnly declared on the twenty ninth of the same Month having â—ate only eight days by the Kings Authority For notwithstanding the said Dissolution the Members of the said Assembly continued and kept their Session and therein passed many Acts for the utter overthrow of the Polity and Government of the Church the infringing of his Majesties Prerogative Royal and violating the Authority of Parliaments For they not only Excommunicated the Bishops and their Adherents but condemned the very Function it self to be Antichristian and utterly to be abolished out of the Church notwithstanding that several Parliaments had confirmed the same The like Censure they also past on the Service Book and Canons with the five Articles of Perth though the two first received the Stamp of Royal Authority and the five last were confirmed in Parliament also They condemned in one breath all the Arminian Tenents in case of Predestination without examining the Arguments on which they were built and declared all men subject to Excommunication and other Censures of the Church who should refuse to yield obedience to all their unlawful Actings and Determinations And though his Majesty by the same Proclamation had commanded all his faithful Subjects not to yield any obedience to their Acts and Ordinances and bound himself in the Word of a King to defend them in it yet those of the Assembly were resolved to maintain their Authority For notwithstanding his Majesties late Declaration and Commands not only the Bishops and Clergy but also as many of the Layty as had refused to subscribe to the Acts thereof were deprived of their Offices and Preferments banished their Country and forced to fly into England oâ— other places the King not being able to protect them from the power and malice of their Adversaries For having lost the opportunity of suppressing them in their first Insurrection in the year precedent aâ—d afterwards of reducing them by force of Arms in the year next following he was forced to shuffle up such a Pacification in the Parliaments of both Kingdoms Anno 1641. as left his Party dâ—â—â—â—tute of all protection but what they found in England by his Majesties Favour in providing the Clergy of some small Benefices for their present subsistance which possibly might amount to more than formerly they enjoyed in their own Country And yet the Covenanters did not play all parts in this Assembly the King and his Commissioner had one part to act which was the presenting of a Declaration containing the sum and substance of all his Majesties gracious Condescensions exprest in the several Proclamations before remembred and a Command to have it registred in the Acts and Records thereof But upon what considerations and reasons of State his Majesty might be moved to commit that Paper to be registred amongst the Acts of Assembly is beyond my reach 〈◊〉 â—â—ough many times the wisest Princes have sent out Proclamations of Grace for redress of Grievances and pardoning of fore-past o 〈…〉 yet were those Proclamations and Acts of Grace beheld no otherwise than as temporary and occasional Remedies for the present mischiefs not to be drawn into Example and much less put upon Record for the times cusuing his Majesties Condescensions had been large enough and too much to the prejudice of his Crown and Dignity without this Enrolment Nor wants it somewhat of a â—iddle that at such time as Hamilton tendred the Paper of his Majâ—stiâ—s â—racious Concessions for discharging of the Service Book c. to be enrolled amongst the Acts of the Assembly he both declared and protested that his so doing should be no acknowledgment of the lawfulness and validity of that Convention which was instantly to be dissolved or that his Majestie should give order to have those Acts of Grace and Favour enrolled in the Records of the Assembly to stand full and sure to all his good Subjects for their assurance of and in the true Religion which Assembly at the same time â—e declared to be illegal and all the Acts thereof to be null and void I must confess I am not Oedipus enough for so dark a Sphinx and must therefore leave this depth of State-craft to more able heads Only I cannot chuse but note how little his Majesty got by those Condescensions the stubborn and rebellious Scots being so far unsatisfied with these Acts of Grace that they not only forced all
Army That the like be done for Mustering and Arraying the Clergy throughout England or otherwise to furnish the King with a proportion of Armed Men for the present Service 6. That Writs be issued out into all Counties for certifying the King what number of Horse and Foot every County could afford him in his Wars with Scotland 7. The like also to the Borders requiring them to come unto the Kings Army well armed Commissions to be made for punishing such as refused 8. That the Sheriffs of the Counties were commanded by Writ to make Provisions of Corn and Victuals for the Kings Army and to cause them to be carried to the place appointed The like Command sent to the Merchants in the Port-Towns of England and Ireland and the Ships of the Subject taken to Transport such Provisions to the place assigned 9. Several Sums of Money raised by Subsidies and Fifteens from the English Subject and Aid of Money given and lent by the Merchant-Strangers toward the Maintenance of the War 10. That the King used to suspend the payment of his Debts for a certain time in regard of the great occasions he had to use Money in the Wars of Scotland Other Memorials were returned to the same effect but these the principal According to these Instructions his Majesty directs his Letters to the Temporal Lords his Writs to the High-Sheriffs his Orders to the Lord-Lieutenants and Deputy-Lieutenants in their several Counties his Proclamations generally to all his Subjects Requiring of them all such Aids and Services in his present Wars as either by Laws oâ— Ancient Customs of the Land they were bound to give him He caused an Order also to be made by the Lords of the Council directed to the two Archbishops Ianuary 29. by which they were Required and Commanded To write their several and â—espâ—ctive Letters to all the Lords Bishops in their several Provinces respectively forthwith to convene before them all the Clergy oâ— Ability in their Diocesses and to incite them by such ways and means as shall be thought best by their Lordships to aid and assist his Majesty with their speedy and liberal Contributions and otherwise for defence of his Royal Person and of this Kingdom And that the same be sent to the Lord Treasurer of England with all diliâ—ence Subscribed by the Lord Keeper Coventry the Bishop of London Lord Treasurer the Earl of Manchester Lord Privy Seal tâ—â— Duke of Lenox the Earl of Lindsey Lord Great Chamberlain tâ—â— Earl of Arundel Earl-Marshal the Earl of Dorset Lord Chamberlain to the Queen the Earl oâ— Pembroke Lord Chamberlain to the King the Earl of Holland Chancellor of Cambridge Cottington Maâ—ter of the Wards Vane Treasurer of the Houshold Cooke and Winâ—â—bank the two Principal Secretaries Which Warrant whether it proceeded from the Kings own motion or was procured by the Archbishop himself to promote the Service is not much material Certain I am that he conformed himself unto it with a chearful diligence and did accordingly direct his Letters to his Suffragan Bishops in this â—ollowing â—orm My very good Lord I Have received an Order from the Lords of his Majesties most Honourable Privy Council giving me notice of the great Preparations made by sâ—me of Scotland both of Arms and all other Necessaries for War And that this can have no other end than to invade or annoy this his Majesties Kingdom of England For his Majesty having a good while since most graciously â—ielded to their Demands for securing the Religion by Law established amongst them hath made it appear to the World That it is not Religion but Sedition that stirs in them and fills them with this most irreligious Disobedience which at last breaks forth into a high degree of Treason against their Lawful Sovereign In this Case of so great danger both to the State and Church of England your Lordships I doubt not and your Clergie under you will not only be vigilant against the close Workings of any Pretenders in that kind but very free also to your Power and Proportion of Means leâ—t to the Church to contribute toward the raising of such an Army as by Gods Blâ—ssing and his Majesties Care may secure this Church and Kingdom from all intended Violence And according to the Order sent unto me by the Lords a Copy whereof you shall herewith receive these are to pray your Lordship to give a good Example in your own Person and with all convenient speed to call your Clergie and the abler Schoolmasters as well those which are in Peculiars as others and excite them by your self and such Commissioners as you will answer for to contribute to this Great and Necessary Service in which if they give not a good Example they will be much to blame But you are to call no poor Curates nor Stipendaries but such as in other Legal ways of Payment have been and are by Order of Law bound to pay The Proportion I know not well how to prescribe you but I hope they of your Clergie whom God hath blessed with better Estates than Ordinary will give freely and thereby help the want of Means in others And I hope also your Lordship will so order it as that every man will at the least give after the Proportion of 3 s. 10 d. in the Pound of the valuation of his Living or other Preferment in the Kings Books And this I thought fit to lâ—â— you further know That if any man have double Benefices or a Benefice and a Prebend or the like in divers Diocesses yet your Lordship must call upon them only for such Preferments as they have within your Diocess and leave them to pay for any other which they hold to the Bishop in whose Diocess their Preferments are As for the time your Lordship must use all the diligence you can and send up the Moneys if it be possible by the first of May next And for your Indempnity the Lord Treasurer is to give you such discharge by striking a Tally or Tallies upon your several Payments into the Exchequer as shall be fit to sâ—cure you without your Charge Your Lordship must further be pleased to send up a List of the Names of such as refuse this Service within their Diocess but I hope none will put you to that trouble It is further expected That your Lordship and every other Bishop express by it self and not in the general Sum of his Clergie that which himself gives And of this Service you must not fail So to Gods blessed Protection I leave you and rest Your Lordships very Loving Friend and Brother WILL. CANT Lambeth Ian. ult 1638. On the receiving of these Letters the Clergy were Convented in their several Diocesses encouraged by their several Ordinaries not to be wanting to his Majesty in the Present Service and divers Preparations used beforehand to dispose them to it which wrougâ—t so powerfully and effectually on the greatest part of them those which wish'd well unto the Scots seeming
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
on the Earl of Argile who had declared himself for the Covenanters at the Assembly at Glasco resolved to stand to the Conclusion which he brought along with him though he found himself unable to make good the Premises so that some days being unprofitably spent in these debates the Archbishop and the rest of the Committee made a report of the whole business to the rest of the Council who upon full consideration of all particulars came to this Result That since the Scots could not be reclaimed to their obedience by other means they were to be reduced by Force This was no more then what the Scots could give themselves Reason to expect and therefore they bestirred themselves as much on the other side Part of the Walls of the Castle of Edenborough with all the Ordnance upon it had fallen down on the nineteenth of November last being the Anniversary day of his Majesties Birth not without some presage of that ill fortune which befel him in the course of this War for the Repair whereof they would neither suffer Timber nor any other Materials to be carried to it but on the contrary they began to raise Works and Fortifications against it with an intent to block it up and render it unuseful to his Majesties Service And to keep the Souldiers therein Garrisoned most of them English to hard meats they would not suffer them to come into the Market to recruit their Victuals They made Provisions of great quantity of Artillery Munition and Arms from Foreign Parts laid Taxes of ten Marks in the hundred upon all the Subjects according to their several Revenues which they Levied with all cursed Rigour though bruiting them abroad to be Free-will Offerings scattered abroad many Seditious and Scandalous Pamphlets for justifying themselves and seducing others some of which were burnt in England by the hand of the Hangman Fortified Inchgarvie and other places which they planted with Ordnance Imprisoned the Earl of Southesk and other Persons of Quality for their fidelity to the King took to themselves the Government of the City of Edenborough contrary to their Charters and Immunities by which the Citizens were disabled from serving his Majesty in any of his just Commands and finally employed their Emissaries in all Parts of England to disswade those who were too backward of themselves from contributing to the War against them and to sollicit from them such several Aids as might the better enable them to maintain the War against their Sovereign But their chief Correspondence was with France and Ireland In France they had made sure of Cardinal of Richelieu who Governed all Affairs in that Kingdom Following the Maxim of Queen Elizabeth in securing the Peace of his own Country by the Wars of his Neighbours he practised the Revolt of Portugal and put the Catalonians into Arms against their King to the end that he might waste the fiery Spirit of the French in a War on Flanders with the better fortune and success But knowing that it was the Interest of the Crown of England to hold the Balance even between France and Spain and that his Majesty by removing the Ships of Holland which lay before Duynkirk Anno 1635. had hindred the French from making such a Progress by Land as might have made them Masters of the Spanish Netherlands he held it a chief piece of State-Craft as indeed it was to excite the Scots against their King and to encourage them to stand it out unto the last being so excited Upon which ground he sent Chamberlain a Scot by Birth his Chaplain and Almoner to assist the Confederates in advancing the business and to attempt all ways for exasperating the first heat with Order not to depart from them till things succeeding as he wished he might return with good News And on the same appointed one of his Secretaries to reside in Scotland to march along with them into England to be present at all Councils of War and direct their business And on the other side Hamiltons Chaplains had free accesses unto Con the same Countryman also at such time as Chamberlain was Negotiating for the Cardinal to â—oment the Flames which had begun to rage already And by a Letter subscribed by the Earl of Rothes and others of chief note amongst the Covenanters they craved the Assistance of that King cast themselves upon his Protection beseeching him to give credit to Colvill the Bearer thereof whom they had instructed in all Particulars which concerned their Condition and Desires In Ireland they had a strong Party of Natural Scots planted in Vlster by King Iames upon the forfeited Estates of Tir-Owen Tir-Connel Odighirtie c. not Scots in Birth and Parentage only but Design and Faction But Wentworth was not to be told of their secret Practices he saw it in their general disposition to Schism and Faction and was not unacquainted with their old Rebellions It must be his care that they brake not into any new which he performed with such a diligent and watchful eye that he crushed them in the very beginning oâ— the Combination seising upon such Ships and Men as came thither from Scotland Imprisoning some Fining others and putting an Oath upon the rest By which Oath they were bound to abjure the Covenant not to be aiding to the Covenanters against the King nor to Protest against any of his Royal Edicts as their Brethren in Scotland used to do For the refusing of which Oath he Fined one Sir Henry Steward and his Wife Persons of no less Power than Disaffection at no less than 5000 l. apiece two of their Daughters and one Iames Gray of the same Confederacy at the Sum of 3000 l. apiece committing them to Prison for not paying the Fines imposed upon them All which he justified when he was brought unto his Trial on good Reasons of State There being at that time one hundred thousand Souls in Ireland of the Scottish Nation most of them passionately affected to the Cause of the Covenanters and some of them conspiring to betray the Town and Castle of Carickfergus to a Nobleman of that Country for which the Principal Conspirator had been justly Executed Nor staid he here but he gave finally a Power to the Bishop of Down and Connor and other Bishops of that Kingdom and their several Chancellors to attach the Bodies of all such of the meaner sort who either should refuse to appear before them upon Citation or to perform all Lawful Decrees and Orders made by the said Bishops and their Chancellors and to commit them to the next Gaol till they should conform or answer the Contempt at the Council-Table By means whereof he made the poorer sort so pliant and obedient to their several Bishops that there was good hopes of their Conformity to the Rules of the Church Having thus carried on the affairs of Scotland till the end of this year we must return to our Archbishop whom we shall find intent on the preservation of 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
and that for assembling a Convocation their different Forms and the independence of the one upon the other but more especially betwixt the Writ by which they were made a Convocation and that Commission by which they were enabled to the making of Canons That though the Commission was expired with the Parliament yet the Writ continued still in force and by that Writ they were to remain a Convocation until they were Dissolved by another With which Distinction the greatest part of those who before had scrupled at their Sitting did appear well satisfied but better satisfied on the Munday by a Paper which was sent unto them from the Court For the King being made acquainted with these scrupulosities proposed the Question on Sunday May 10. to the greatest Lawyers then about him who gave their Judgment in these words viz. The Convocation called by the Kings Writ is to be continued till it be dissolved by the Kinâ—s Writ notwithstanding the Dissolution of the Parliament Subscribed by â—inch Lord Keeper Manchester Lord Privy Seal Littletâ—â— Chief 〈◊〉 of the Common Pleas Bancks Attorney-General Whitfeild and Heath two of his Majesties Counsel Learned in the Laws of this Land Incouraged with which assurance and Animated by a New Commission to remain in Force during the Pleasure of the King they settled to their work again on Wednesday the thirteenth of that Moneth but not without some trouble of mind in regard of the Apparent Danger which seemed to threaten them The Archbishops house at Lambeth had been assaulted on Munday by a Rabble of Anabaptists Brownists and other Sectaries to the Number of five hundred and upwards who seeing they could not force that house resolved to turn their fury on the Convocation Of which his Majesty being Informed he caused a guard to be set about them consisting of some Companies of the trained Bands of the County of Middlesex under the Command of Endymion Porter one of the Grooms of the Bed-chamber an honest man and of good affections to the Church and his Majesties Service To such extremities were the poor Clergy brought during these confusions in danger of the Kings displeasure if they Rose of the Peoples fury if they Sate in danger of being beaten up by tumults when they were at their work of being beaten down by the following Parliament when their work was done But they went forward howsoever to the end of their journey and did the business as they went dispatching more work in so short a time then could be easily imagined Tâ—ree things there were which Canterbury was to take special caâ—e of in reference to the Publick peace of the Church and State That is to say the Reparation of the breaches made in the Regal and Episcopal Power by the late batteries of the Scots and their adherents on the commending of the Uniformity to all parts of the Kingdom which had been happily begun in so many places 〈◊〉 râ—ference to the first some propositions touching the institution Power and Priviledges of Sovereign Princes were recommended to the consideration of the Prolocutor and the Rest of the Clergy by them to be corrected if they saw occasion and being so corrected to pass into a Canon The Propositions six in number and were these tâ—at follow I. The most High and Sacred Order of Kings is of Divine Right bâ—inâ— the Ordinance of God himself founded in the prime Laws of Nature and clearly established by Express Texts both of the Old and the New Testaments A Supream Power is given to this most Excellent Order by God himself in the Scriptures which is That Kings should Rule and Command in their several Dominions all Persons of what Rank or Estate whatsoever whether Ecclesiastical or Civil and that they should Restrain and Punish with the Temporal Sword all Stubâ—â—â—n and wicked doers II. 〈◊〉 care of Gods Church is so committed to Kings in Scripture that they are commanded when the Church keeps the Right way and taxed when it Runs Amiss and therefore her Goverment belongs in Chief unto Kings For otherwise one man would be commended for anothers care and taxed but for anothers negligence which is not Gods way III. The Power to Call and Dissolve Councils both National and Provincial is the true Right of all Christian Kings within their own Realms and Territories And when in the first times of Christs Church Prelates used this Power 't was therefore only because in those days they had no Christian Kings And it was then so only used as in time of persecution that is with supposition in case it were required of submitting their very lives unto the very Laws and Commands even of those Pagan Princes that they might not so much as seem to disturb their Civil Government which Christ came to confirm but by no means to undermine IV. For any Person or Persons to set up maintain or avow in any the said Realms or Territories Respectively under any pretext whatsoever any Independent Co-active Power either Papal or Popular whether directly or indirectly is to undermine their Great Royal Office and cunningly to overthrow the Most Sacred Ordinances which God himself hath established And so it is Treasonable against God as well as against the King V. For Subjects to bear Arms against their Kings Offensive or Defensive upon any pretence whatsoever is at least to Resist the Powers which are ordained by God And though they do not invade but only Resist S. Paul tells them plainly They shall receive to themselves damnation VI. And although Tribute and Custom and Aid and Subsidies and all manner of necessary Support and Supply be respectively due to Kings from their Subjects by the Law of God Nature and Nations for the Publick Defence care and Protection of them yet nevertheless Subjects have not only possession of but a true and Iust Right Title and Propriety to and in all their Goods and Estates and ought for to have And these two are so far from crossing one another that they mutually go together for the Honourable and Comfortable support of both For as it is the duty of Subjects to supply their King so is it part of the Kingly office to support his Subjects in the Propriety and Freedom of their Estates These Propositions being Read and Considered of were generally past and approved without contradiction but that a little stop was made touching the Necessity of Aid and Subsidie to Kings from their Subjects which some thought fitter to leave at large according to the Laws of several Countries then to entitle it to the Law of God Nature and Nations but after a very light dispute that clause was allowed of with the Rest and a Canon presently drawn up by a ready hand according to the Vote of the House to make them Obligatory to the Clergy in the course of their Ministries The preamble which was sent with the Propositions required them to be read distinctly and audibly by every Parson Vicar Curate or Preacher upon some one Sunday
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
into the Form of an Impeachment he intended to present to the House of Peers as soon as he had taken his place amongst them and to that end prepared for his last Journey to London from whence he never was to return alive Calling together some of his especial Friends and many of the chief Officers and Commanders which remained in the Army he made them acquainted with his purpose of going to Westminster to attend the Parliament leaving to them the Charge of his Majesties Forces and the preserving of those parts from the spoyl of the Enemy An Enterprise from which he was disswaded by most of his Friends alledging that he could not chuse but know that the Scots and Scotizing English had most infallibly resolved on his destruction and that innocency was no Armour of Proof against the fiery Darts of malicious Power That seeing such a storm hang over his head rather keep himself in the English Army being under his Command which he had gained upon exceedingly by his noble carriage or pass over into Ireland where the Army rested wholly at his Devotion or transport himself to some Foreign Kingdom till fairer weather here in reference to his own safety and the publick peace should invite him home That it was no betraying of his innocency to decline a Trial where Partiality held the Scales and Self-ends backt with Power and made blind with Prejudice were like to over-ballance Justice That if Sentence should be passed against him for default of appearance which was the worst that could befal him yet he would then keep his head on his shoulders until better times and in the mean season might do his Majesty as good Service in the Courts of many Foraign Princes as if he were sitting in White-hall at the Council Table Turning a deaf car to these considerations he Resolved to prosecute his design but was scarce entred into the House of Peers when followed at the heels by Pym whom it concerned as much as any who fearing or knowing his intendments impeacht him of high Treason in the name of all the Commons of England requiring their names that he might be sequestred from the House and Committed to Custody And here again it was conceived that the Earl shewed not that praesentiam animi that readiness of Courage and Resolution which formerly had conducted him through so many difficulties in giving over his design For though he lost the opportunity of striking the first blow yet he had time enough to strike the second which might have been a very great Advantage to his preservation For had he offered his impeachment and prosecuted it in the same paces and method as that was which was brought against him it is possible enough that the business on both sides might have been hushed up without hurt to either And for so doing he wanted not a fair Example in the second Parliament of this King when the Earl of Bristol being impeached of high Treason by the Kings Attorney at the instance and procurement of the Duke of Buckingham retorted presently a recrimination or impeachment against the Duke and by that means took of the edge of that great Adversary from proceeding further Nor gave it little cause of wonder unto many wise men that a person of so great Spirit and knowledge should give himself up so tamely on a general accusation only without any particular Act of Treason charged upon him or any proof offered to make good that charge not only to the loss of his Liberty as a private Person but to the forfeiture of his Priviledge as a Member of Parliament But the impeachment being made his Restraint desired and nothing by him offered to the Contrary he was committed the same day Novemb. 11. to the Custody of the Gentleman Vsher called the Black-rod and not long after to the Tower Sir George Ratcliff one of his especial confidents being presently sent for out of Ireland by a Serjeant at Arms as concriminal with him In this condition he remained till the 16th of Decemb. without any particular Charge against him Which at the last was brought into the House of Peers by the Scots and presented in their Names by Lord Paget one of the Members of that House In which they did inform against him in reference to matters which concerned Religion that in promoting the late pretended Innovations he had been as forward as Canterbury himsâ—lf and to that end had preferred his Chaplain Bramhall to the See of Derrie and Chappel to the Colledge of Dublin that he had threatned to burn the Articles of Ireland agreed upon in Convocation Anno 1615. by the hand of the Hangman and would not hearken to the Primate when he desired a Ratification of them by Act of Parliament for preventing and suppressing the said Innovations that he countenanced divers books against them and their Covenant which were Printed at Dublin and caused all Persons above the age of sixteen years to abjure the said Covenant by a solemn Oath or otherwise to be Imprisoned or to fly that Kingdom that at his last coming into England he had openly said that if ever he returned unto the Honourable Sword he would not leave any of the Scots in that Kingdom either Root or Branch and that he did advise the great Council of Peers assembled at York to send them back again in their own blood and that he might whip them out of England In further pursuance of this Charge it was prest against him in the Articles Exhibited by the House of Commons on the 16 â—h of February for so long it was before he heard any more news from them That he maintained a correspondence with the Papists of Ireland endeavoured to raise hostility between England and Scotland and had consented to the betraying of New-castle into the hands of the Scots to the end that the English being nettled by so great a loss might be more Cordially engaged in the War against them that he gave a Warrant under his hand to some Bishops in the Church of Ireland and their Chancellors and other Officers to Arrest the Bodies of such of the meaner sort as after Citation should refuse to appear before them or should refuse to undergo and perform all Lawful decrees and sentences given or issued out against them and the said persons to keep in the next Common Goal till their Submission to the said Orders and Decrees and otherwise shew some Reason to the Contrary to the Lords of the Counsel that in the Moneth of May in the year 1639. he caused a new Oath to be contrived Enforced especially upon those of the Scottish Nation in the Realm of Ireland by which the party was obliged to Renounce the Covenant and to swear that he would not Protest against any of his Majesties Royal Commands but submit himself in all obedience thereunto and had put divers grievous fines upon many of them on their Refusal of the same that he required the like Oath for the
grosly abused by the multiplicity of Libellous Pamphlets and my self debarred from wonted access to the best of Princes and it is Vox Populi that I am Popishly affected How earnest I have been in my Disputations Exhortations and otherwise to quench such sparks lest they should become Coals I hope after my death you will all acknowledge yet in the midst of all my afflictions there is nothing 〈◊〉 hath so nearly touched me as the remembrance of your free and joyful acceptance of me to be your Chancellour and that I am now shut up from being able to do you that Service which you might justly expect from me When I first received this honour I intended to have carried it with me to my Grave neither were my hopes any less since the Parliament called by his Majesties Royal Command committed me to this Royal Prison But sith by reason of matters of greater consequence yet in hand the Parliament is pleased to procrastinate my Trial I do hereby as thankfully resign my Office of being Chancellor as ever I received that Dignity entreating you to Elect some Honourable Person who upon all occasions may be ready to serve you and I beseech God send you such an one as may do all things for his glory and the furtherance of â—â—ur most famous Vniversity This is the continual Prayer of Your dejected Friend and Chancellour Being the last time I shall write so Will. Cant. Tower Iune 28 1641. This Resignation having eased him of some part of his cares it was no small refreshment to him in the midst of his sorrows that notwithstanding all the clamour about Innovations the Parliament had made no Order to alter any thing which he had laboured to establish The Commons might perhaps have some thoughts that way but they either kept them to themselves or found but little comfort in them when they suffered them to go abroad or shew themselves in any motion to the House of Lords The Peers were then so far from entertaining any such extravagant Fancies that taking notice of the Irregular Zeal of some forward men who had not patience enough to attend the leisure of Authority they joyned together with the Prelates in this Order of Ianuary 16. for putting a stop to their Exorbitancies at the first breaking out For by that Order it was signified to be the pleasure of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal assembled in the High Court of Parliament That the Divine Service be performed as it is appointed by the Acts of Parliament of this Realm And that all such as shall disturb that wholsom Order shall be severely punished according to the Law And the Parsons Vicars and Curates in the several Parishes shall forbear to introduce any Rites or Ceremonies that may give offence otherwise than those which are established by the Laws of the Land Which last Clause being couched in such general terms related only to such Rites and Ceremonies as otherwise might have been introduced for the time to come not unto such as had been entertained and settled by any former Authority Countenanced and secured by which Declaration the Ordinaries went on chearfully in the exercise of their Jurisdiction suffering no alteration or disturbance to pass unquestioned if any troublesome or unquiet person did begin to stir But no sooner was the Coercive power of Bishops and other Ecclesiastical Judges restrained or rather utterly abolished by the late Act of Parliament and the Kings Journey into Scotland left men and matters at more liberty than before they were but presently the House of Commons took upon them such a Reformation so it must be called in which they neither found concurrence of the House of Peers or could expect it from the King But finding that they were strong enough to set up for themselves without working Journey-work any longer unto either of them they made the following Order of September 8. to be the first Experiment or Essay of their undertakings For though in a Conference had the same day with the Lords they desired their consent therein and that the Lords returned them no other Answer than by sending them the next day being the day of the Recess a Copy of the former Order of Ianuary 16. in which they desired then to concur yet Pym who governed the Committee during that Recess dispatcht his Mandate oâ— the 29 th of the same month over all the Kingdom requiring all Ministers and Churchwardens to publish the said Order in their several Churches to see it put in execution and cause Certificates to be made thereof by the time appointed Which Order being the Leading Card to the Game that followed was verbatim thus viz. WHereas divers Innovations in or about the Worship of God have been lately practised in this Kingdom by enjoyning sâ—me things and prâ—â—â—â—â—â—ng others without warrant of Law to the great grievance and disconâ—ent of his Majesties Subjects For the suppression of such Innovations and for preservation of the Publick Peace It is this day Ordered by the Commons in Parliament assembled That the Churchwardens of every Parish Church or Chappel respectively doth forthwith remove the Communion Table from the East end of the Church Chappel or 〈…〉 some other convenient place and that they take away the 〈…〉 the Chancâ—ls as heretofore they were before the late 〈…〉 That all Crucifixes scandalous Pictures of any one or 〈…〉 of tâ—e Trinity and all Images of the Virgin Mary shall 〈…〉 and aâ—olished and that all Tapers Candlesticks and 〈…〉 from the Communion Table That all Corporal Bâ—w 〈…〉 IESVS or toward the East end of the Church 〈…〉 or towards the Communion Table be henceforth 〈…〉 That the Orders aforesaid be observed in all the several Ca 〈…〉 Churches of this Kingdom and all the Colledges Churches or 〈◊〉 in the two Vniversities or any other part of this Kingdom 〈◊〉 in thâ— Temple Church and the Chappels of other Inns of Court 〈◊〉 the Deaâ—s of the said Cathedral Churches by the Vice-Chancellours of the said Vniversities and by the Heads and Governours of the several Câ—lleâ—ges and Halls aforesaid and by the Benchers and Readers in 〈…〉 Inns â—f Court respectively That the Lords day shall be duly obsâ—râ—ed and sanctified All Dancing or other Sports either before or after Diâ—iâ—e Service be forborne and restrained and that the Preaching 〈…〉 â—â—rd be permitted in the Afternoon in the several Churches and Chappels of this Kiâ—gdom and that Ministers and Preachers be encouâ—â—gâ—d thereunto That the Vice-Chancellours of the Vniversities Heads 〈…〉 Colledges all Parsons Vicars Churchwardens do 〈◊〉 Câ—rtificate of the performance of these Orders and if the same shall 〈◊〉 be observed in any places aforementioned upon complaint therâ—of made to the two next Iustices of the Peace Major and Head-Officers of Cities and Towns Corporate It is ordered That the said Iustices Major and other Head-Officer respectively shall examine the 〈◊〉 of all such complaints and certifie by whose default the same are â—â—mitted All which Certificates are to