c. 1, amounted only to fifty thousand; and, if we can trust the

authority of other lists, they were much fewer before the accession of James. This writer, I may observe in passing, has, through haste and thoughtlessness, misstated a passage he cites from Murden's _State Papers_, p. 605, and confounded the persons suspected for religion in the city of London, about the time of the Armada, with the whole number of men fit for arms; thus making the former amount to seventeen thousand and eighty-three.

Mr. Butler has taken up so paradoxical a notion on this subject, that he literally maintains the catholics to have been at least one half of the people at the epoch of the gunpowder plot. Vol. i. p. 295. We should be glad to know at what time he supposes the grand apostasy to have been consummated. Cardinal Bentivoglio gives a very different account; reckoning the real catholics, such as did not make profession of heresy, at only a thirtieth part of the whole; though he supposes that four-fifths might become such, from secret inclination or general indifference, if it were once established. _Opere di Bentivoglio_, p. 83, edit. Paris, 1645. But I presume neither Mr. Butler nor Dr. Lingard would own these _adiaphorists_.

The latter writer, on the other hand, reckons the Hugonots of France, soon after 1560, at only one-hundredth part of the nation, quoting for this Castelnau, a useful memoir writer, but no authority on a matter of calculation. The stern spirit of Coligni, _atrox animus Catonis_, rising above all misfortune, and unconquerable, except by the darkest treachery, is sufficiently admirable without reducing his party to so miserable a fraction. The Calvinists at this time are reckoned by some at one-fourth, but more frequently at one-tenth, of the French nation. Even in the beginning of the next century, when proscription and massacre, lukewarmness and self-interest, had thinned their ranks, they are estimated by Bentivoglio (_ubi supra_) at one-fifteenth.

[281] Strype's _Parker_, 152, 153; Collier, 508. In the Lansdowne Collection, vol. viii. 47, is a letter from Parker, Apr. 1565, complaining of Turner, dean of Wells, for having made a man do penance for adultery in a square cap.

[282] Strype's _Parker_, 157, 173.

[283] This apprehension of Elizabeth's taking a disgust to protestantism is intimated in a letter of Bishop Cox. Strype's _Parker_, 229.

[284] Parker sometimes declares himself willing to see some indulgence as to the habits and other matters; but, the queen's commands being peremptory, he had thought it his duty to obey them, though forewarning her that the puritan ministers would not give way (225, 227). This, however, is not consistent with other passages, where he appears to importune the queen to proceed. Her wavering conduct, partly owing to caprice, partly to insincerity, was naturally vexatious to a man of his firm and ardent temper. Possibly he might dissemble a little in writing to Cecil, who was against driving the puritans to extremities. But, on the review of his whole behaviour, he must be reckoned, and always has been reckoned, the most severe disciplinarian of Elizabeth's first hierarchy; though more violent men came afterwards.

[285] Strype's _Annals_, 416; _Parker_, 159. Some years after, these advertisements obtained the queen's sanction, and got the name of Articles and Ordinances. _Id._ 160.

[286] Strype's _Annals_, 416, 430; _Life of Parker_, 184. Sampson had refused a bishopric on account of these ceremonies. Burnet, iii. 292.

[287] _Life of Parker_, 214. Strype says (p. 223) that the suspended ministers preached again after a little time by connivance.

[288] Jewel is said to have become strict in enforcing the use of the surplice. _Annals_, 421.

[289] Strype's _Annals_, i. 423, ii. 316; _Life of Parker_, 243, 348; Burnet, iii. 310, 325, 337. Bishops Grindal and Horn wrote to Zurich, saying plainly, it was not their fault that the habits were not laid aside, with the cross in baptism, the use of organs, baptism by women, etc. P. 314. This last usage was much inveighed against by the Calvinists, because it involved a theological tenet differing from their own, as to the necessity of baptism. In Strype's _Annals_, 501, we have the form of an oath taken by all mid-wives, to exercise their calling without sorcery or superstition, and to baptize with the proper words. It was abolished by James I.

Beza was more dissatisfied than the Helvetic divines with the state of the English church (_Annals_, i. 452; Collier, 503); but dissuaded the puritans from separation, and advised them rather to comply with the ceremonies. _Id._ 511.

[290] Strype's _Life of Parker_, 242; _Life of Grindal_, 114.

[291] Burnet, iii. 316; Strype's _Parker_, 155 _et alibi_.

[292] _Id._ 226. The church had but two or three friends, Strype says, in the council about 1572, of whom Cecil was the chief. _Id._ 388.

[293] Burnet says, on the authority of the visitors' reports, that out of 9400 beneficed clergymen, not more than about 200 refused to conform. This caused for some years just apprehensions of the danger into which religion was brought by their retaining their affections to the old superstition; "so that," he proceeds, "if Queen Elizabeth had not lived so long as she did, till all that generation was dead, and a new set of men better educated and principled were grown up and put in their rooms; and if a prince of another religion had succeeded before that time, they had probably turned about again to the old superstition as nimbly as they had done before in Queen Mary's days." Vol. ii. p. 401. It would be easy to multiply testimonies out of Strype, to the papist inclinations of a great part of the clergy in the first part of this reign. They are said to have been sunk in superstition and looseness of living. _Annals_, i. 166.

[294] Strype's _Annals_, 138, 177; Collier, 436, 465. This seems to show that more churches were empty by the desertion of popish incumbents than the foregoing note would lead us to suppose. I believe that many went off to foreign parts from time to time, who had complied in 1559; and others were put out of their livings. The Roman catholic writers make out a longer list than Burnet's calculation allows.

It appears from an account sent in to the privy council by Parkhurst, Bishop of Norwich, in 1562, that in his diocese more than one-third of the benefices were vacant. _Annals_, i. 323. But in Ely, out of 152 cures only 52 were served in 1560. _L. of Parker_, 72.

[295] Parker wrote in 1561 to the bishops of his province, enjoining them to send him certificates of the names and qualities of all their clergy; one column, in the form of certificate, was for learning: "And this," Strype says, "was commonly set down; Latinè aliqua verba intelligit, Latinè utcunque intelligit; Latinè pauca intelligit," etc. Sometimes, however, we find doctus. _L. of Parker_, 95. But if the clergy could not read the language in which their very prayers were composed, what other learning or knowledge could they have? Certainly none; and even those who had gone far enough to study the school logic and divinity, do not deserve a much higher place than the wholly uninstructed. The Greek tongue was never _generally_ taught in the universities or public schools till the Reformation, and perhaps not so soon.

Since this note was written, a letter of Gibson has been published in Pepys's _Memoirs_, vol. ii. p. 154, mentioning a catalogue he had found of the clergy in the archdeaconry of Middlesex, A.D. 1563, with their qualifications annexed. Three only are described as docti Latinè et Græcè; twelve are called docti simply; nine, Latinè docti; thirty-one, Latinè mediocriter intelligentes; forty-two, Latinè perperam, utcunque aliquid, pauca verba, etc., intelligentes; seventeen are non docti or indocti. If this was the case in London, what can we think of more remote parts?

[296] In the struggle made for popery at the queen's accession, the lower house of convocation sent up to the bishops five articles of faith, all strongly catholic. These had previously been transmitted to the two universities, and returned with the hands of the greater part of the doctors to the first four. The fifth they scrupled, as trenching too much on the queen's temporal power. Burnet, ii. 388, iii. 269.

Strype says, the universities were so addicted to popery that for some years few educated in them were ordained. _Life of Grindal_, p. 50. And Wood's _Antiquities of the University of Oxford_ contain many proofs of its attachment to the old religion. In Exeter College, as late as 1578, there were not above four protestants out of eighty, "all the rest secret or open Roman affectionaries." These chiefly came from the west, "where popery greatly prevailed, and the gentry were bred up in that religion." Strype's _Annals_, ii. 539. But afterwards, Wood complains, "through the influence of Humphrey and Reynolds (the latter of whom became divinity lecturer on Secretary Walsingham's foundation in 1586), the disposition of the times, and the long continuance of the Earl of Leicester, the principal patron of the puritanical faction, in the place of Chancellor of Oxford, the face of the university was so much altered that there was little to be seen in it of the church of England, according to the principles and positions upon which it was first reformed." _Hist. of Oxford_, vol. ii. p. 228. Previously, however, to this change towards puritanism, the university had not been Anglican, but popish; which Wood liked much better than the first, and nearly as well as the second.

A letter from the University of Oxford to Elizabeth on her accession (Hearne's edition of Roper's _Life of More_, p. 173) shows the accommodating character of these academies. They extol Mary as an excellent queen, but are consoled by the thought of her excellent successor. One sentence is curious: "Cum _patri_, _fratri_, _sorori_, nihil fuerit republicâ carius, _religione optatius_, verâ gloriâ dulcius; cum in hâc familiâ hæ laudes floruerint, vehementer confidimus, etc., quæ ejusdem stirpis sis, easdem cupidissime prosecuturam." It was a singular strain of complaisance to praise Henry's, Edward's, and Mary's religious sentiments in the same breath; but the queen might at least learn this from it, that whether she fixed on one of their creeds, or devised a new one for herself, she was sure of the acquiescence of this ancient and learned body. A preceding letter to Cardinal Pole, in which the times of Henry and Edward are treated more cavalierly, seems by the style, which is very elegant, to have been the production of the same pen.

[297] The fellows and scholars of St. John's College, to the number of three hundred, threw off their hoods and surplices, in 1565, without any opposition from the master, till Cecil, as chancellor of the university, took up the matter, and insisted on their conformity to the established regulations. This gave much dissatisfaction to the university; not only the more intemperate party, but many heads of colleges and grave men, among whom we are rather surprised to find the name of Whitgift, interceding with their chancellor for some mitigation as to these unpalatable observances. Strype's _Annals_, i. 441; _Life of Parker_, 194. Cambridge had, however, her catholics, as Oxford had her puritans, of whom Dr. Caius, founder of the college that bears his name, was among the most remarkable. _Id._ 200. The Chancellors of Oxford and Cambridge, Leicester and Cecil, kept a very strict hand over them, especially the latter, who seems to have acted as paramount visitor over every college, making them reverse any act which he disapproved. Strype, _passim_.

[298] Strype's _Annals_, i. 583; _Life of Parker_, 312, 347; _Life of Whitgift_, 27.

[299] Cartwright's _Admonition_, quoted in Neal's _Hist. of Puritans_, i. 88.

[300] Madox's _Vindication of Church of England against Neal_, p. 122. This writer quotes several very extravagant passages from Cartwright, which go to prove irresistibly that he would have made no compromise short of the overthrow of the established church. P. 111, etc. "As to you, dear brethren," is said in a puritan tract of 1570, "whom God hath called into the brunt of the battle, the Lord keep you constant, that ye yield neither to toleration, neither to any other subtle persuasions of dispensations and licences, which were to fortify their Romish practices; but, as you fight the Lord's fight, be valiant." Madox, p. 287.

[301] These principles had already been broached by those who called Calvin master; he had himself become a sort of prophet-king at Geneva. And Collier quotes passages from Knox's _Second Blast_, inconsistent with any government, except one slavishly subservient to the church. P. 444. The nonjuring historian holds out the hand of fellowship to the puritans he abhors, when they preach up ecclesiastical independence. Collier liked the royal supremacy as little as Cartwright; and in giving an account of Bancroft's attack on the nonconformists for denying it, enters upon a long discussion in favour of an absolute emancipation from the control of laymen. P. 610. He does not even approve the determination of the judges in Cawdrey's case (5 Coke's Reports), though against the nonconformists, as proceeding on a wrong principle of setting up the state above the church. P. 634.

[302] The school of Cartwright were as little disposed as the episcopalians to see the laity fatten on church property. Bancroft, in his famous sermon preached at Paul's Cross in 1588 (p. 24), divides the puritans into the clergy factious, and the lay factious. The former, he says, contend and lay it down in their supplication to parliament in 1585, that things once dedicated to a sacred use ought so to remain for ever, and not to be converted to any private use. The lay, on the contrary, think it enough for the clergy to fare as the apostles did. Cartwright did not spare those who longed to pull down bishoprics for the sake of plundering them, and charged those who held impropriations with sin. Bancroft takes delight in quoting his bitter phrases from the ecclesiastical discipline.

[303] The old friends and protectors of our reformers at Zurich, Bullinger and Gualter, however they had favoured the principles of the first nonconformists, write in strong disapprobation of the innovators of 1574. Strype's _Annals_, ii. 316. And Fox, the martyrologist, a refuser to conform, speaks, in a remarkable letter quoted by Fuller in his _Church History_, p. 107, of factiosa illa Puritanorum capita, saying that he is totus ab iis alienus, and unwilling perbacchari in episcopos. The same is true of Bernard Gilpin, who disliked some of the ceremonies, and had subscribed the articles with a reservation, "so far as agreeable to the word of God;" but was wholly opposed to the new reform of church discipline. _Carleton's Life of Gilpin_, and Wordsworth's _Ecclesiastical Biography_, vol. iv. Neal has not reported the matter faithfully.

[304] "The puritan," says Persons the jesuit, in 1594, "is more generally favoured throughout the realm with all those which are not of the Roman religion than is the protestant, upon a certain general persuasion, that his profession is the more perfect, especially in great towns, where preachers have made more impression in the artificers and burghers than in the country people. And among the protestants themselves, all those that were less interested in ecclesiastical livings, or other preferments depending of the state, are more affected commonly to the puritans, or easily are to be induced to pass that way for the same reason." Doleman's _Conference about the next Succession to the Crown of England_, p. 242. And again: "The puritan party at home, in England, is thought to be most rigorous of any other, that is to say, most ardent, quick, bold, resolute, and to have a great part of the best captains and soldiers on their side, which is a point of no small moment."--P. 244. I do not quote these passages out of trust in Father Persons, but because they coincide with much besides that has occurred to me in reading, and especially with the parliamentary proceedings of this reign. The following observation will confirm what may startle some readers; that the puritans, or at least those who rather favoured them, had a majority among the protestant gentry in the queen's days. It is agreed on all hands, and is quite manifest, that they predominated in the House of Commons. But that house was composed, as it has ever been, of the principal landed proprietors, and as much represented the general wish of the community when it demanded a further reform in religious matters, as on any other subject. One would imagine, by the manner in which some express themselves, that the discontented were a small faction, who by some unaccountable means, in despite of the government and the nation, formed a majority of all parliaments under Elizabeth and her two successors.

[305] Burnet, iii. 335. Pluralities are still the great abuse of the church of England; and the rules on this head are so complicated and unreasonable that scarce any one can remember them. It would be difficult to prove that, with a view to the interests of religion among the people, or of the clergy themselves, taken as a body, any pluralities of benefices with cure of souls ought to remain, except of small contiguous parishes. But with a view to the interests of some hundred well connected ecclesiastics, the difficulty is none at all.

[306] D'Ewes, p. 156; _Parliament. Hist._ i. 733, etc.

[307] D'Ewes, p. 239; _Parl. Hist._ 790; Strype's _Life of Parker_, 394.

In a debate between Cardinal Carvajal and Rockisane, the famous Calixtin archbishop of Prague, at the council of Basle, the former said he would reduce the whole argument to two syllables; Crede. The latter replied he would do the same, and confine himself to two others; Proba. Lenfant makes a very just observation on this: "Si la gravité de l'histoire le permettoit, on diroit avec le comique: C'est tout comme ici. Il y a long tems que le premier de ces mots est le langage de ce qu'on appelle _l'Eglise_, et que le second est le langage de ce qu'on appelle _l'heresie_." _Concile de Basle_, p. 193.

[308] Several ministers were deprived, in 1572, for refusing to subscribe the articles. Strype, ii. 186. Unless these were papists, which indeed is possible, their objection must have been to the articles touching discipline; for the puritans liked the rest very well.

[309] Neal, 187; Strype's _Parker_, 325. Parker wrote to Lord Burleigh (June 1573), exciting the council to proceed against some of those men who had been called before the star-chamber. "He knew them," he said, "to be cowards"--a very great mistake--"and if they of the privy council gave over, they would hinder her majesty's government more than they were aware, and much abate the estimation of their own authorities," etc. _Id._ p. 421; Cartwright's _Admonition_ was now prohibited to be sold. _Ibid._

[310] Neal, 210.

[311] Strype's _Annals_, i. 433.

[312] Strype's _Annals_, ii. 219, 232; _Life of Parker_, 461.

[313] Strype's _Life of Grindal_, 219, 230, 272. The archbishop's letter to the queen, declaring his unwillingness to obey her requisition, is in a far bolder strain than the prelates were wont to use in this reign, and perhaps contributed to the severity she showed towards him. Grindal was a very honest, conscientious man, but too little of a courtier or statesman for the place he filled. He was on the point of resigning the archbishopric when he died; there had at one time been some thoughts of depriving him.

[314] Strype's _Whitgift_, 27 _et alibi_. He did not disdain to reflect on Cartwright for his poverty, the consequence of a scrupulous adherence to his principles. But the controversial writers of every side in the sixteenth century display a want of decency and humanity which even our anonymous libellers have hardly matched. Whitgift was not of much learning, if it be true, as the editors of the _Biographia Britannica_ intimate, that he had no acquaintance with the Greek language. This must seem strange to those who have an exaggerated notion of the scholarship of that age.

[315] Strype's _Whitgift_, 115.

[316] Neal, 266; Birch's _Memoirs of Elizabeth_, vol. i. p. 42, 47, etc.

[317] According to a paper in the appendix to Strype's _Life of Whitgift_, p. 60, the number of conformable ministers in eleven dioceses, not including those of London and Norwich, the strongholds of puritanism, was 786, that of non-compliers 49. But Neal says that 233 ministers were suspended in only six counties, 64 of whom in Norfolk, 60 in Suffolk, 38 in Essex. P. 268. The puritans formed so much the more learned and diligent part of the clergy, that a great scarcity of preachers was experienced throughout this reign, in consequence of silencing so many of the former. Thus in Cornwall, about the year 1578, out of 140 clergymen, not one was capable of preaching. Neal, p. 245. And, in general, the number of those who could not preach, but only read the service, was to the others nearly as four to one; the preachers being a majority only in London. _Id_. p. 320.

This may be deemed by some an instance of Neal's prejudice. But that historian is not so ill-informed as they suppose; and the fact is highly probable. Let it be remembered that there existed few books of divinity in English; that all books were, comparatively to the value of money, far dearer than at present; that the majority of the clergy were nearly illiterate, and many of them addicted to drunkenness and low vices; above all, that they had no means of supplying their deficiences by preaching the discourses of others; and we shall see little cause for doubting Neal's statement, though founded on a puritan document.

[318] _Life of Whitgift_, 137 _et alibi pluries_; _Annals_, iii. 183.

[319] Neal, 274; Strype's _Annals_, iii. 180.

The germ of the high commission court seems to have been a commission granted by Mary (Feb. 1557) to certain bishops and others to inquire after all heresies, punish persons misbehaving at church, and such as refused to come thither, either by means of presentments by witness, or any other politic way they could devise; with full power to proceed as their discretions and consciences should direct them; and to use all such means as they could invent, for the searching of the premises, to call witnesses, and force them to make oath of such things as might discover what they sought after. Burnet, ii. 347. But the primary model was the inquisition itself.

It was questioned whether the power of deprivation for not reading the common prayer, granted to the high commissioners, were legal; the Act of Uniformity having annexed a much smaller penalty. But it was held by the judges in the case of Cawdrey (5 Coke Reports), that the act did not take away the ecclesiastical jurisdiction and supremacy which had ever appertained to the crown, and by virtue of which it might erect courts with as full spiritual jurisdiction as the archbishops and bishops exercised.

[320] Strype's _Whitgift_, 135; and Appendix, 49.

[321] _Id._ 157, 160.

[322] _Id._ 163, 166 _et alibi_; Birch's _Memoirs_, i. 62. There was said to be a scheme on foot, about 1590, to make all persons in office subscribe a declaration that episcopacy was lawful by the word of God, which Burleigh prevented.

[323] Neal, 325, 385.

[324] _Id._ 290; Strype's _Life of Aylmer_, p. 59, etc. His biographer is here, as in all his writings, too partial to condemn, but too honest to conceal.

[325] Neal, 294.

[326] Strype's _Aylmer_, 71. When he grew old, and reflected that a large sum of money would be due from his family, for dilapidations of the palace at Fulham, etc., he literally proposed to sell his bishopric to Bancroft. _Id._ 169. The other, however, waited for his death, and had above £4000 awarded to him; but the crafty old man having laid out his money in land, this sum was never paid. Bancroft tried to get an act of parliament in order to render the real estate liable, but without success. P. 194.

[327] _Somers' Tracts_, i. 166.

[328] Bacon's Works, i. 532.

[329] Birch's _Memoirs_, ii. 146,

[330] _Id. ibid._ Burleigh does not shine much in these memoirs; but most of the letters they contain are from the two Bacons, then engaged in the Essex faction, though nephews of the treasurer.

[331] The first of Martin Mar-prelate's libels were published in 1588. In the month of November of that year the archbishop is directed by a letter from the council to search for and commit to prison the authors and printers. Strype's _Whitgift_, 288. These pamphlets are scarce; but a few extracts from them may be found in Strype, and other authors. The abusive language of the puritan pamphleteers had begun several years before. Strype's _Annals_, ii. 193. See the trial of Sir Richard Knightley of Northamptonshire for dispersing puritanical libels. _State Trials_, i. 1263.

[332] 23 Eliz. c. 2.

[333] Penry's protestation at his death is in a style of the most affecting and simple eloquence. _Life of Whitgift_, 409, and Appendix 176. It is a striking contrast to the coarse abuse for which he suffered. The authors of Martin Mar-prelate were never fully discovered; but Penry seems not to deny his concern in it.

[334] _State Trials_, 1271. It may be remarked on this as on other occasions, that Udal's trial is evidently published by himself; and a defendant, especially in a political proceeding, is apt to give a partial colour to his own case. _Life of Whitgift_, 314; _Annals of Reformation_, iv. 21; Fuller's _Church History_, 122; Neal, 340. This writer says: "Among the divines who _suffered death_ for the libels above mentioned, was the Rev. Mr. Udal." This is no doubt a splenetic mode of speaking. But Warburton, in his short notes on Neal's history, treats it as a wilful and audacious attempt to impose on the reader; as if the ensuing pages did not let him into all the circumstances. I will here observe that Warburton, in his self-conceit, has paid a much higher compliment to Neal than he intended, speaking of his own comments as "a full confutation (I quote from memory) of that historian's false facts and misrepresentations." But when we look at these, we find a good deal of wit and some pointed remarks, but hardly anything that can be deemed a material correction of facts.

Neal's _History of the Puritans_ is almost wholly compiled, as far as this reign is concerned, from Strype, and from a manuscript written by some puritan about the time. It was answered by Madox, afterwards bishop of Worcester, in a _Vindication of the Church of England_, published anonymously in 1733. Neal replied with tolerable success; but Madox's book is still an useful corrective. Both, however, were, like most controversialists, prejudiced men, loving the interests of their respective factions better than truth, and not very scrupulous about misrepresenting an adversary. But Neal had got rid of the intolerant spirit of the puritans, while Madox labours to justify every act of Whitgift and Parker.

[335] _Life of Whitgift_, 328.

[336] _Id._ 336, 360, 366, Append. 142, 159.

[337] _Id._ Append. 135; _Annals_, iv. 52.

[338] This predilection for the Mosaic polity was not uncommon among the reformers; Collier quotes passages from Martin Bucer as strong as could well be found in the puritan writings. P. 303.

[339] _Life of Whitgift_, p. 61, 333, and Append. 138; _Annals_, iv. 140. As I have not seen the original works in which these tenets are said to be promulgated, I cannot vouch for the fairness of the representation made by hostile pens, though I conceive it to be not very far from the truth.

[340] _Ibid_. Madox's _Vindication of the Ch. of Eng. against Neal_, p. 212; Strype's _Annals_, iv. 142.

[341] The large views of civil government entertained by the puritans were sometimes imputed to them as a crime by their more courtly adversaries, who reproached them with the writings of Buchanan and Languet. _Life of Whitgift_, 258; _Annals_, iv. 142.

[342] See a declaration to this effect, at which no one could cavil, in Strype's _Annals_, iv. 85. The puritans, or at least some of their friends, retaliated this charge of denying the queen's supremacy on their adversaries. Sir Francis Knollys strongly opposed the claims of episcopacy, as a divine institution, which had been covertly insinuated by Bancroft, on the ground of its incompatibility with the prerogative, and urged Lord Burleigh to make the bishops acknowledge they had no superiority over the clergy, except by statute, as the only means to save her majesty from the extreme danger into which she was brought by the machinations of the pope and King of Spain. _Life of Whitgift_, p. 350, 361, 389. He wrote afterwards to Lord Burleigh in 1591, that if he might not speak his mind freely against the power of the bishops, and prove it unlawful, by the laws of this realm, and not by the canon law, he hoped to be allowed to become a private man. This bold letter he desires to have shown to the queen. _Lansdowne Catalogue_, vol. lxviii. 84.

[343] D'Ewes, 302; Strype's _Whitgift_, 92, Append. 32.

[344] D'Ewes, 339 _et post_; Strype's _Whitgift_, 176, etc., Append. 70.

[345] Strype's _Annals_, iii. 228.

[346] Strype's _Annals_, iii. 186, 192. Compare Append. 35.

[347] Strype's _Whitgift_, 279; _Annals_, iii. 543.

[348] _Parl. Hist._ 921.

[349] Strype's _Whitgift_, 521, 537, App. 136. The archbishop could not disguise his dislike to the lawyers. "The temporal lawyer," he says in a letter to Cecil, "_whose learning is no learning anywhere but here at home_, being born to nothing, doth by his labour and travel in that barbarous knowledge purchase to himself and his heirs for ever a thousand pounds per annum, and oftentimes much more, whereof there are at this day many examples."--P. 215.

[350] Strype's _Whitgift_, and D'Ewes, _passim_. In a convocation held during Grindal's sequestration (1580), proposals for reforming certain abuses in the spiritual courts were considered; but nothing was done in it. Strype's _Grindal_, p. 259, and Appendix, p. 97. And in 1594, a commission to enquire into abuses in the spiritual courts was issued; but whether this were intended _bonâ fide_ or not, it produced no reformation. Strype's _Whitgift_, 419.

[351] 35 Eliz. c. 1; _Parl. Hist._ 863.

[352] Neal asserts in his summary of the controversy, as it stood in this reign, that the puritans did not object to the office of bishop, provided he was only the head of the presbyters, and acted in conjunction with them. P. 398. But this was in effect to demand everything. For if the office could be so far lowered in eminence, there were many waiting to clip the temporal revenues and dignity in proportion.

In another passage, Neal states clearly, if not quite fairly, the main points of difference between the church and nonconforming parties under Elizabeth. P. 147. He concludes with the following remark, which is very true. "Both parties agreed too well in asserting the necessity of an uniformity of public worship, and of calling in the sword of the magistrates for the support and defence of the several principles, which they made an ill use of in their turns, as they could grasp the power into their hands. The standard of uniformity, according to the bishops, was the queen's supremacy and the laws of the land; according to the puritans, the decrees of provincial and national synods, allowed and enforced by the civil magistrate; but neither party were for admitting that liberty of conscience and freedom of profession which is every man's right, as far as is consistent with the peace of the government he lives under."

[353] Neal, 253, 386.

[354] Strype's _Whitgift_, 414; Neal, 373. Several years before, in 1583, two men called anabaptists, Thacker and Copping, were hanged at the same place on the same statute for denying the queen's ecclesiastical supremacy; the proof of which was their dispersion of Brown's tracts, wherein that was only owned in civil cases. Strype's _Annals_, iii. 186. This was according to the invariable practice of Tudor times: an oppressive and sanguinary statute was first made; and next, as occasion might serve, a construction was put on it contrary to all common sense, in order to take away men's lives.

[355] "The discipline of Christ's church," said Cartwright, "that is necessary for all times, is delivered by Christ, and set down in the Holy Scriptures. Therefore the true and lawful discipline is to be fetched from thence, and from thence alone. And that which resteth upon any other foundation ought to be esteemed unlawful and counterfeit." Whitgift, in his answer to Cartwright's _Admonition_, rested the controversy in the main, as Hooker did, on the indifferency of church discipline and ceremony. It was not till afterwards that the defenders of the established order found out that one claim of divine right was best met by another.

[356] "If the natural strength of men's wit may by experience and study attain unto such ripeness in the knowledge of things human, that men in this respect may presume to build somewhat upon their judgment; what reason have we to think but that even in matters divine, the like wits, furnished with necessary helps, exercised in scripture with like diligence, and assisted with the grace of Almighty God, may grow unto so much perfection of knowledge, that men shall have just cause, when anything pertinent unto faith and religion is doubted of, the more willingly to incline their minds towards that which the sentence of so grave, wise, and learned in that faculty shall judge most sound? For the controversy is of the weight of such men's judgment," etc. But Hooker's mistake was to exaggerate the weight of such men's judgment; and not to allow enough for their passions and infirmities, the imperfection of their knowledge, their connivance with power, their attachment to names and persons, and all the other drawbacks to ecclesiastical authority.

It is well known that the preface to the _Ecclesiastical Polity_ was one of the two books to which James II. ascribed his return into the fold of Rome; and it is not difficult to perceive by what course of reasoning on the positions it contains this was effected.

[357] In the life of Hooker prefixed to the edition I use, fol. 1671, I find an assertion of Dr. Barnard, chaplain to Usher, that he had seen a manuscript of the last books of Hooker, containing many things omitted in the printed volume. One passage is quoted, and seems in Hooker's style. But the question is rather with respect to interpolations than omissions. And of the former I see no evidence or likelihood. If it be true, as is alleged, that different manuscripts of the three last books did not agree, if even these disagreements were the result of fraud, why should we conclude that they were corrupted by the puritans rather than the church? In Zouch's edition of Walton's _Life of Hooker_, the reader will find a long and ill digested note on this subject, the result of which has been to convince me that there is no reason to believe any other than verbal changes to have been made in the loose draught which the author left, but that whatever changes were made, it does not appear that the manuscript was ever in the hands of the puritans. The strongest probability, however, of their authenticity is from internal evidence.

A late writer has produced a somewhat ridiculous proof of the carelessness with which all editions of the _Ecclesiastical Polity_ have been printed; a sentence having slipped into the text of the seventh book, which makes nonsense, and which he very probably conjectures to have been a marginal memorandum of the author for his own use on revising the manuscript. M'Crie's _Life of Melvil_, vol. i. p. 471.

[358] The puritans objected to the title of lord bishops. Sampson wrote a peevish letter to Grindal on this, and received a very good answer. Strype's _Parker_, Append. 178. Parker, in a letter to Cecil, defends it on the best ground; that the bishops hold their lands by barony, and therefore the giving them the title of lords was no irregularity, and nothing more than a consequence of the tenure. Collier, 544. This will not cover our modern _colonial_ bishops, on whom the same title has, without any good reason, been conferred.

[359] Strype's _Annals_, i. 159.

[360] 1 Eliz. c. 19; 13 Eliz. c. 10; Blackstone's _Commentaries_, vol. ii. c. 28. The exception in favour of the Crown was repealed in the first year of James.

[361] It was couched in the following terms:--

"PROUD PRELATE,--You know what you were before I made you what you are: if you do not immediately comply with my request, by G---- I will unfrock you.

ELIZABETH."

Poor Cox wrote a very good letter before this, printed in Strype's _Annals_, vol. ii. Append. 84. The names of Hatton Garden and Ely Place (Mantua væ miseræ nimium vicina Cremonæ) still bear witness to the encroaching lord keeper, and the elbowed bishop.

[362] Strype, iv. 246. See also p. 15 of the same volume. By an act in the first year of James, c. 3, conveyances of bishops' lands to the crown are made void; a concession much to the king's honour.

[363] Harrington's "State of the Church," in _Nugæ Antiquæ_, vol. ii. _passim_; Wilkins's _Concilia_, iv. 256; Strype's _Annals_, iii. 620 _et alibi_; _Life of Parker_, 454; _of Whitgift_, 220; _of Aylmer, passim_. Observe the preamble of 13 Eliz. c. 10. It must be admitted, on the other hand, that the gentry, when popishly or puritanically affected, were apt to behave exceedingly ill towards the bishops. At Lambeth and Fulham they were pretty safe; but at a distance they found it hard to struggle with the rudeness and iniquity of the territorial aristocracy; as Sandys twice experienced.

[364] Birch's _Memoirs_, i. 48. Elizabeth seems to have fancied herself entitled by her supremacy to dispose of bishops as she pleased, though they did not hold commissions _durante bene placito_, as in her brother's time. Thus she suspended Fletcher, Bishop of London, of her own authority, only for marrying "a fine lady and a widow." Strype's _Whitgift_, 458. And Aylmer, having preached too vehemently against female vanity in dress, which came home to the queen's conscience, she told her ladies that if the bishop held more discourse on such matters, she would fit him for heaven; but he should walk thither without a staff and leave his mantle behind him. Harrington's "State of the Church," in _Nugæ Antiquæ_, i. 170; see too p. 217. It will of course not appear surprising that Hutton, Archbishop of York, an exceedingly honest prelate, having preached a bold sermon before the queen, urging her to settle the succession, and pointing strongly towards Scotland, received a sharp message. P. 250.

[365] D'Ewes, 328.

[366] Collier says (p. 586) on Heylin's authority, that Walsingham offered the puritans, about 1583, in the queen's name, to give up the ceremony of kneeling at the communion, the cross in baptism, and the surplice; but that they answered, "ne ungulam quidem esse relinquendam." But I am not aware of any better testimony to the fact; and it is by no means agreeable to the queen's general conduct.

[367] Bacon, ii. 375. See also another paper concerning the pacification of the church, written under James, p. 387. "The wrongs," he says, "of those which are possessed of the government of the church towards the other, may hardly be dissembled or excused."--P. 382. Yet Bacon was never charged with affection for the puritans. In truth, Elizabeth and James were personally the great support of the high church interest; it had few real friends among their counsellors.

[368] Burnet, ii. 418; Cabala, part ii. 38 (4to edition). Walsingham grounds the queen's proceedings upon two principles: the one, that "consciences are not to be forced, but to be won and reduced by force of truth, with the aid of time, and use of all good means of instruction and persuasion;" the other, that "cases of conscience, when they exceed their bounds, and grow to be matter of faction, lose their nature; and that sovereign princes ought distinctly to punish their practices and contempt, though coloured with the pretence of conscience and religion." Bacon has repeated the same words, as well as some more of Walsingham's letter, in his observations on the libel on Lord Burleigh, i. 522. And Mr. Southey (_Book of the Church_, ii. 291) seems to adopt them as his own.

Upon this it may be observed; first, that they take for granted the fundamental sophism of religious intolerance, namely, that the civil magistrate, or the church he supports, is not only in the right, but so clearly in the right, that no honest man, if he takes time and pains to consider the subject, can help acknowledging it: secondly, that, according to the principles of Christianity as admitted on each side, it does not rest in an esoteric persuasion, but requires an exterior profession, evidenced both by social worship, and by certain positive rites; and that the marks of this profession, according to the form best adapted to their respective ways of thinking, were as incumbent upon the catholic and puritan, as they had been upon the primitive church: nor were they more chargeable with faction, or with exceeding the bounds of conscience, when they persisted in the use of them, notwithstanding any prohibitory statute, than the early Christians.

The generality of statesmen, and churchmen themselves not unfrequently, have argued upon the principles of what, in the seventeenth century, was called Hobbism, towards which the Erastian system, which is that of the church of England, though excellent in some points of view, had a tendency to gravitate; namely, that civil and religious allegiance are so necessarily connected, that it is the subject's duty to follow the dictates of the magistrate in both alike. And this received some countenance from the false and mischievous position of Hooker, that the church and commonwealth are but different denominations of the same society. Warburton has sufficiently exposed the sophistry of this theory; though I do not think him equally successful in what he substitutes for it.