Duke had the effrontery to declare that he knew nothing either of the Bull or the Admonition. At that very time there was lying in his cabinet a letter, received a fortnight before from the King of Spain, thanking him for having had the Cardinal's letter translated at Antwerp.* He gave out that he could "no more erre or mistake the right than Moyses, the prophets, or Christe and his Apostles, and that his books were of equal authority with Holy Scripture itself. Moses, he said, taught mankind to hope, Christ to believe, but he to love, which last being of more worth than both the former, he prophets." Attention had been called to their teaching in a book by I. Rogers, published in 1572, called "The Displaying of an horrible Secte of grosse and wicked Heretiques, naming themselves the Family of Love;" and again by two authors in 1579, W. Wilkinson and I. Knewstub. In 1578 appeared another book which caused a great sensation. This was "A was consequently greater than both those Treatise of Schisme, shewing that al Catholikes ought in any wise to abstaine altogether from heretical Conventicles: " printed at Douay, and written by Gregory Martin, afterwards Professor of Divinity at the English College at Rome. It gave great offence to the Queen and her Ministers, and very naturally, for it invites the ladies about the Queen's person to imitate the example of Judith, in ridding the world of Holofernes." Though printed in 1578, it was not till 1584 that measures were taken concerning it. A copy had been sent by Cardinal Allen to Carter the printer, for a new edition. That very copy, wanting the title-page, is now in the Bodleian. The impression was seized, and Carter himself arraigned at the Old Bailey for printing it, and the next day hanged at Tyburn. 66 Among the many sects which troubled the Church of England in those days was that of the Brownists, whom Dr. Hook regards as the original Independents. Their founder, Robert Brown, of C.C.C., Cambridge, came back from a journey to Zealand so convinced of the Popish tendencies of the Church of England, as to declare there was nothing of Christ left in her discipline. The books and pamphlets in which his doctrines were set forth were prohibited by a proclamation, issued October 1584; and there is little doubt but that he would have shared the fate of two of his disciples, who were hanged at Bury St. Edmunds for distributing these suppressed publications, had he not been, fortunately for himself, a relation of Lord Burleigh. 66 Little notice, however, was taken of them till 1580, although in 1575 they had applied to Parliament for toleration, and accompanied their application with a "confession of faith," a curious document, no doubt, which we hope may be discovered by the Historical Commission. What answer was returned to their appeal we cannot tell, but five years afterwards a proclamation was issued against them, which, if the description given of them therein was at all just, was certainly not uncalled for. They are charged with teaching "damnable heresies, directly contrary to divers of the principal articles of our belief and Christian faith,” and that as many as shall be allowed by them to be of that family to be elect and saved, and all others, of what church soever they be, to be rejected and damned." A still more serious charge is "that those Sectaries hold opinion that they may, before any magistrate, ecclesiastical or temporal, or any other person, not being professed to be of their sect, by oath, or otherwise, deny anything for their advantage." cordingly orders are given to proceed severely against all such persons, and also that "search be made in all places suspected for the books and writings maintaining the said heresies and sects, that they may be destroyed and burnt." Some of Another sect which fell under the these books are specially mentioned, "the Queen's displeasure was the Family of author whereof they name H. N., without Love. The original founder of this an-yielding to him, upon their examination, cient Agapemone was a Dutch Anabap- any other name," Evangelium Regni or tist, born at Delft, called David George; the Joyful Message of the Kingdom," rebut the person who gave it its definite printed by sentences in Knewstub's book, form and character was Henry Nicholas, which he answers one by one, Documentor Nicolai, a native, as some say, of Mun- all Sentences," "The Prophesie of the ster, and others of Amsterdam, who re- Spirit of Love," and "A Publishing of sided for some time in London in the the Peace upon Earth." Rogers mentions reign of Edward VI. His pretensions eleven works of Nicolas w ich he had were quite as blasphemous as his master's. seen besides two others, he had not been able to get a sight of. In 1604 they made an attempt at clearing them Motley, vol. ii. p. 386. 66 Ac selves in a petition to James I., in which | cation, under a constrained interpretation they ask the King to read their books of the Act passed a few years before and judge for himself, and by no means to (anno 23 Eliz. c. 2), which made the publiconfound them with the disobedient Puri- cation of seditious libels against the tans, "whose malice has for twenty-five Queen's government a capital felony. years, and upwards, with many untrue Nothing, however, could be proved against suggestions and most foul errors and him, and after a month's detention he was odious crimes, sought our overthrow and discharged. Who were the real authors destruction." As far as public opinion will perhaps never be ascertained, though went, the petition met with but poor suc- the late Mr. Petheram thought he had a cess. Fuller, in whose time they went by clue to their discovery, which, however, as the name of Ranters, is mightily amused far as we know, he never made public. at their anxiety to be separated from the Mr. Maskell tells us they have usually Puritans, "though these Familists could been attributed to Penry, Throgmorton, not be so desirous to leave them as the Udal, and Fenner; but he confesses that others were glad to be left by them." after all his inquiries the question remains One of the latest accounts of them will be as obscure as before, and thinks that it is found in the third volume of the Harleian very far from clear that either one of Miscellany. these last named was actually concerned in the authorship of any of the pamphlets. Udal before the Star Chamber declared himself fully persuaded that they were not written by any Puritan minister, and "I think," he says, "there is never a minister in this land that doth know who Martin is. And I for my part have been inquisitive, but I never could learn who he is." Udal, indeed, could hardly have had a hand in any of the tracts except the earliest. In 1588 he had published anonymously a book called " A demonstration of the truth of that discipline which Christ has prescribed in his Worde for the government of his Church in all times and places until the world's end." He was cited before the Star Chamber on the charge that "he not having the fear of God before his eyes, but being stirred up by the instigation and motion of the devil, did maliciously publish a slanderous and infamous libel against the Queen's majesty, her crown and dignity." The evidence of his authorship was not very strong, but his judges attempted in every possible Of the controversial publications, how-way to make him criminate himself. Time ever, of the time of Elizabeth, none are more famous than the series of tracts known by the name of the Martin Marprelate tracts. They need only to be alluded to very shortly here, as we have a very complete history of them in the work of Mr. Maskell.* The list given by him comprises, including certain replies, eighteen different publications, all now of great, some of excessive rarity. On February 13, 1589, the Queen issued a proclamation against seditious and schismatical books; and one person, John Penry, was arrested as being concerned in their publi The ecclesiastical government of the Church of England was a subject of long and bitter controversy. In 1571 there was published a tract in duodecimo called "An Admonition to Parliament." It had no title-page and was no doubt printed at a private press. At the end of the second address to the Christian reader are "reasons which have made us the authors of these treatises, to kepe back our names, and also to suppresse the name of the printer of them." The authors were most probably the Puritan divines John Field and Thomas Wilcox. The tract was frequently reprinted, and in 1572 Field and Wilcox presented a copy to the House of Commons and were immediately committed to Newgate. The original tract is of great rarity owing to a proclamation issued June 11, 1573, in which the admonition itself and "one other also in defence of the sayde admonition" are commanded to be delivered up "on payne of imprysonment and her highnesse further displeasure." A History of the Martin Marprelate Controversy in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. London: 1845. after time he was asked, "Did you make the book, Udal, yea or no?" Imperfect, however, as was the evidence he was condemned to be hanged, and probably would have been but for the intercession that King James of Scotland made for him with the Queen. Meantime through the earnest solicitations of his friends, he was induced to express his sorrow that he had given her Majesty such deep and just occasion for displeasure. His pardon was to have been granted, and he himself had arranged with some Turkey merchants to go to Guinea. But for some reason or other the ships had to go without him and he ended his days in the White Lion Prison in 1592. It was in the time of the Stuarts that the "Doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings" attained its most extravagant development. In 1607 a book was published at Cambridge which roused in some quarters very intense indignation. This was Dr. Cowel's "Law Dictionary, or the interpreter of words and terms used either in Common or Statute Law of this realm," written, it was believed, at the request of Archbishop Bancroft. In this work it is declared that the King is not bound by the laws of the realm; he could pass what decrees he liked without consulting Parliament; if he asked their consent in matters of finance, it was as a favour not as a right. "Though at his coronation he took an oath not to alter the laws of the land, yet, this oath notwithstanding, he may alter or suspend any particular law that seemeth hurtful to the public estate." No wonder it found favour in the eyes of James, but it roused the jealousy of Parliament and it was censured in both Houses. The King, seeing how intense the feeling was, did not dare to interfere. The author was imprisoned though only for a short time, and the King had to issue a proclamation for the suppression of the book, which was committed to the flames, for which the Commons returned thanks with great joy at their victory." In the proclamation the King complains that from the very highest mysteries of the Godhead and the most inscrutable councels in the Trinitie to the very lowest pit of Hell and the confused actions of the divells there, there is nothing now unsearched into by the curiositie of men's braines; and that as "these men sit with God in His most privie closet," so "it is no wonder that they doe not spare to wade in all the deepest mysteries that belong to the persons or the state of Kinges and Princes, that are gods upon earth." The proclamation ends with a clause of considerable importance: "For better oversight of books of all sortes before they come to the presse, we have resolved to make choice of commissioners that shall looke more narrowly into the nature of all those things that shall be put to the presse, either concerning our authoritie royall or concerning our government, or the lawes of our Kingdom." learnedest men in the world, and schooled by them;" but his want of sympathy with their doctrines was unmistakeably shown in the rude and unfair manner in which he treated their arguments. James's theology, however, was, after all, except on the point of Conformity, of a very uncertain description, and it veered capriciously between "High and Low" Church opinions. In 1617, Mr. Sympson, Fellow of Trin. Coll. Cambridge, was obliged to recant certain statements he had made in a sermon preached before the King, which advocated Arminian views; and that very same year, Dr. Mocket's treatise, "Doctrina et politia Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ," fell under censure, because it favoured the Calvinists. Dr. Mocket's intention was to give foreign churches a fair notion of the doctrines of the English Church; and for that purpose he had translated the Prayer Book into Latin, adding Jewel's Apology and Nowell's Catechism. But in his translation of the Articles he had omitted the latter part, which sets forth the power of the Church in rites and ceremonies and in controversies of faith. Besides this, instead of printing the Homilies at length, he had given an abbreviation of them, not fairly representing the opinions of this Church; and, moreover, in a treatise of his own, he had not given the See of Winchester precedence over all others, next to London, but only over those whose bishops were not privy councillors. Dr. Montagu, Bishop of Winchester, was at that time on bad terms with Archbishop Abbot, whose chaplain Dr. Mocket was; the King was appealed to; and the result was a public edict by which the book was ordered to be burnt. Truly," says Mr. Perry, "in those days the gift of composition was a dangerous one; even to write without intent to preach (as Mr. Peacham did), might forfeit a man's life; to preach Arminianism was a crime in one place, to advocate Calvinism a heresy in another."t The part James took with respect to the Synod of Dort, which was held in 1618, shows us the King in a Calvinistic mood; but the decided line Archbishop Abbot took with regard to the support of the King's son-in-law, the Elector Palatine, in his claim to the crown of Bohemia, threw the King's influence in the opposite direction. This was strongly shown in 1624, in the case of the future Bishop of Winchester, then Rector of Stamford Rivers. Barlow's "Sum and Substance of the Confer Whatever hopes the Puritans may have been induced to indulge in of advantage to themselves from the Hampton Court Conference must have been unpleasantly dissipated when that mock conference actually commenced. The King had been ence at Hampton Court," in Cardwell's Conferences, "brought up among Puritans, not the History, vol. i. p. 255. p. 177. Finding that certain Jesuits had been very | before the King, the sermons being afterbusy in his parish, "he left in one of the wards printed by the King's permission. houses certain propositions written down, In these the opinions of Dr. Cowel, altogether with an offer that, if they would luded to, were very strongly reproconvince him in any one of them, he would duced. After a censure by the House of become a convert." They replied by Commons, the author was impeached besending him a pamphlet, entitled "A Gag fore the House of Lords, who gave judg for the new Gospel." Montagu, however, ment: 1. That Dr. Mainwaring shall be showed himself more than a match for imprisoned during the pleasure of the them in his answer, which he called "A House; 2. That he be fined 1,000l. to the Gagg for the new Gospel? No, A Gagg King; 3. That he shall make such submisfor an old Goose, who would needs under- sion and acknowledgment of his offences take to stop all Protestant mouths for ever as shall be set down by a committee in with 276 places out of their owne English writing both at the bar and in the House Bibles." In it Montagu proved that sev- of Commons; 4. That he shall be sueral Calvinistic doctrines with which the pended three years from the exercise of Church of England was charged were no his ministry; 5. That he shall hereafter part of her teaching. Two lecturers at be disabled from any ecclesiastical digIpswich, Yates and Ward, set to work to nity; 6. That he shall be for ever disexamine the book, and made out a list abled to preach at the Court hereafter; of statements which they said favoured and 7. That his Majesty be moved to Popery and Arminianism, and laid them grant a proclamation for the calling in of before Parliament. Montagu, knowing his books, that they may be burnt in Lonhow little he had to expect from their don and both Universities. The King actender mercies, applied to the King, who promised to protect him. Meanwhile he was urged to write another book defending his opinions, which he accordingly did in his Appello Cæsarem: a just appeale from two unjust informers." Before the edition could be printed off the King died. On Charles's accession, the House of Commons proceeded to take steps against the Doctor for his new puplication. He was summoned to the bar of the House, committed to the custody of the Serjeant, and afterwards admitted to bail in the amount of 2,000. Though the King now interfered, the matter was not allowed to drop, and it was only through the hasty dissolution of the Oxford Parliament that he was unmolested. But in the next session the book was referred to by, what appears for the first time in the proceedings of the House of Commons, the Committee of Religion. The issue was that the House prayed the King, "that the said Richard Montagu may be punished according to his demerits, in such exemplary manner as may deter others from attempting so presumtuously to disturb the peace of the Church and State, and that the books aforesaid may be suppressed and burnt." It was not, however, till January 14, 1628, that the proclamation for its suppression was issued; what it really amounted to may be gathered from the fact that on August 24 of that year Montagu was consecrated Bishop of Winchester. 1 cordingly issues a proclamation, in which he declares that the Doctor had "drawn upon himself the just censure and sentence of the high Court of Parliament." Mainwaring himself made a most abject apology to the House, and after the session was over, the fine was remitted, the Doctor himself released from prison, two livings given him, and in 1636 he became Bishop of St. David's. the times of Elizabeth were at first, in many "The disputes which agitated the Church in instances, unpardonably foolish and trifling. Taking as indulgent a view as we can of the Puritans of her time it cannot be denied that they are eminently provoking. That sober and pious men should think themselves justified in convulsing, worrying, and distracting the young Church struggling towards maturity and strength amidst the greatest obstacles, on the miserable question of church vestments, or the insignificant matter of the use of the cross in baptism, seems to show a sufficiently bitter and litigious spirit, and with this, in fact, the Puritan clergy are justly chargeable. They fought factiously and they fought unfairly. They were most loud and troublesome when there was the greatest danger from the Papist and the Spaniard, and they suddenly assumed a quieter tone when the power of the foreign foe was broken."* One of their great objects was the overthrow of the Bishops, but even here, the ground they occupied at the beginning was shifted entirely as the dispute went They first desired only to shake In the previous year, Dr. Mainwaring, on. one of the King's chaplains, had got into! trouble for some sermons he had preached 66 * Perry, vol. i. pp. 16, 17. down the leaves of Episcopacy," says Ful- | The burning of these two books by comler, "misliking only some garments about mand of the High Commission Court is them; then they came to strike at the one of the charges Michael Sparkes brings branches, and last of all they did lay their against Archbisbop Laud on his trial. axe unto the root of the tree." By the "But," writes the Archbishop in the time of Charles I. opinions had grown still" History of his Troubles," "he does not further embittered, and it is in that reign say absolutely burnt, but as he is inthat we find the severest examples of formed,' and he may be informed amiss." punishment incurred for any publications | There is no doubt, however, about the that reflected upon the third order of the treatment of another of his publications, ministry. In 1628 there appeared a very which appeared in the early part of 1633. scurrilous work by a Scotch doctor of This was "The Histriomastix, the playphysic and divinity, Alexander Leighton, er's scourge or actor's tragedies," a book father of the Archbishop, entitled "An which, as we shall see presently, appears Appeal to the Parliament; or Sion's Plea to have had the distinction of being the against the Prelacie. Printed the year first publication burnt in England by the and month in which Rochell was lost." hands of the common hangman. Prynne He calls bishops men of blood, ravens, showed no little courage in publishing and magpies; he declares the institution of Episcopacy to be anti-christian and satanical; the Queen is a daughter of Heth, and the King is corrupted by bishops to the undoing of himself and people; and he approves of the murder of Buckingham. Language such as this could hardly have been passed over unnoticed. But it was not till June 4, 1630, that the author was brought before the Star Chamber. There was no difficulty in pronouncing him guilty of seditious and scandalous writings; and he was sentenced to a terrible and barbarous punishment. Besides a fine of 10,000l. and degradation from the ministry, he was publicly whipped in Palace Yard, made to stand two hours in the pillory; one ear was cut off, a nostril slit open, and one of his cheeks branded with the letters S. S. (Sower of Sedition). After this he was afterwards employed in the defence sent off to the Fleet Prison. At the end of Laud- that he was heartily sorry of a week, "being not yet cured," he was for the strong language he had embrought out again, underwent a second ployed; the judges vied with each other whipping, and a repetition of the former in condemning him to the most exatrocities, and was then consigned to pris-treme penalties they could inflict. on for life, where he actually spent eleven years. In April 1641 his sentence was reversed by the House of Commons, and he received such consolation as it could afford him, when it was decided that his former mutilation and imprisonment had been entirely illegal. this book at a time when the Court was The Earl of Dorset was the most vehement, but it will be enough to quote the judg ment of Lord Cottington, the Chancellor of the Excifequer. "I do in the first place begin censure with his book. I condemn it to be burnt in the most There are few men whom a cacoethes public manner that can be. The manner in scribendi ever brought into such trouble other countries is (where such books are), to be as William Prynne, "utter barrister of burnt by the hangman, though not used in England (yet I wish it may in respect of the Lincoln's Inn." Of his publications, nearstrangeness and heinousness of the matter ly 200 in number, the first appeared in contained in it) to have a strange manner 1627, entitled "The perpetuity of a re- of burning, and therefore I shall desire it generate man's estate, against the Saint's total and final Apostasy." In the follow-may be so burnt by the hand of the hanging year, besides other works, he pub- "If it may agree with the Court, I do aulished "A brief survey and censure of judge Mr. Prynne to be put from the bar, and Mr. Cozens, his couzening devotions." to be for ever uncapable of his profession. I do man. |