had already been applied to most incumbents, and the preachers and lecturers-the most Puritanical class-were still subject to it. Nevertheless it seems a fair and fitting concession, and the archbishop assured Secretary Walsingham that it had brought him some ease from his former troubles, and produced some quietness in the Church.1

§ 29. A great part of the primate's difficulties had arisen from the fact that he was not a member of the Privy Council, and therefore not present to hear and meet accusations, to explain matters that had been misunderstood, and to enforce the importance of others which the lay councillors were not able to perceive. In February 1586, however, the archbishop obtained admission to the Council. Leicester was absent with the contingent of troops in the Low Countries, or he would probably have opposed the admission of Whitgift with all his power. And besides the Primate, two lords well disposed to second him-Lords Cobham and Buckhurst -were at the same time admitted councillors. Hatton also, who was striving hard for the post of chief favourite with the queen, showed himself ready to support one whom the queen regarded with unvarying respect. The best understanding was kept up between him and Whitgift by Dr. Bancroft, Hatton's chaplain, who enjoyed the Primate's full confidence, so that now Whitgift may be considered to have gained a firm footing, and to have established the predominance of his influence in matters connected with the Church against all those who had opposed it.

1 Strype's Whitgift, b. iii. c. 13.

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

(A) WAY IN WHICH CHURCH SERVICE WAS PERFORMED BY MR. NICHOLAS, OF EASTWELL.

DR LAKES, commissary of the archbishop, reports on the way in which the Church service was performed at Eastwell, as follows:-"The order of prayer was not used according to the order of the Book of Cominon Prayer, for divers things were pretermitted, as the Exhortation, the Absolution, the Venite, the Te Deum, the Creed, the three Collects, the Creed of St. Athanasius, the Litany. The way he performed the service was to begin with

the general Confession and the Lord's Prayer, then to read the Psalms and Lessons, then to sing a psalm in metre, then a sermon of an hour and a-half, then another psalm and an extemporary prayer. When holy communion was celebrated the table was set in the body of the church. The clergyman used the Lord's prayer, and the collect Almighty God unto whom,' the epistle and gospel, and the general confession of the communicants. He then, without any consecration, used the words, The body of the Lord Jesus Christ which was given for us, preserve our bodies and souls unto everlasting

life,' and delivered the sacramental bread | Drayton Beauchamp, and 1585 Master to the communicants sitting in their pews, saying unto them, 'Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee.' Then taking the cup, he said, 'The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which was shed for us, preserve our bodies and souls to everlasting life.' And 'We drink this in remembrance that Christ died for us.' Then the cup was handed to one of the communicants, and he, after drinking, handed it to another, and so on, a psalm of thanksgiving being meanwhile sung of the whole. In baptism, the father was called to answer the questions. The sign of the cross was omitted. The chancel was in a ruinous state and unused. The order appointed for churching of women was not used as directed; and at marriages the minister used an order of his own, omitting the order of the book."Strype's Whitgift, b. iii. c. 5.

(B) RICHARD HOOKER.

of the Temple. Here he became involved in a dispute with Walter Travers, the controversy being carried on in their sermons, so that it was generally said "the forenoon sermon spake Canterbury, the afternoon Geneva," The archbishop judg ing this to be productive of scandal, silenced Travers, on the ground that he was not lawfully ordained according to the rites of the Church of England, and that he had opposed what was said by another preacher instead of conferring with him. Upon this Travers, by way of appealing against the Primate, published his Supplication to the Privy Council. To this Hooker published an answer, which was the germ of his famous work on ecclesiastical polity. "It was," to use Walton's words, "to satisfy these malcontents, and to unbeguile and win them, that he designed to write a sober deliberate treatise of the Church's power, to make canons for the use of ceremonies, and by law to impose an obedience to them, as upon her children, and this he proposed to do in eight books of ecclesiastical polity, intending therein to show such arguments as should force an assent from all men if reason delivered in sweet language and void of all provocation were able to do it."-Walton's Hooker. The In first part of this famous work appeared in 1594. In 1591, Hooker was presented by Whitgift to the Rectory of Boscomb, and in 1595 by the queen to the Rectory of Bishopbourne, in Kent, where he died

RICHARD HOOKER was born of poor parents at Heavitree, near Exeter, in 1554. He became known to Bishop Jewel, who procured his admission to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and settled a pension on him. After Jewel's death he was befriended by Dr. Edwin Sandys, who became Archbishop of York. 1577 Hooker was chosen Fellow of Corpus, and became lecturer in Hebrew. In 1581 he took orders, and soon after married, his wife being a very unsuitable person for him In 1584 he was made rector of

1600.

CHAPTER XX.

THE STRUGGLE WITH PURITANISM-THE LIBELLERS.

1586-1593.

§ 7.

§ 1. Attempt made by the Puritans in 1586 to influence the Parliament and the Queen. § 2. They subscribe the Book of Discipline. § 3. The question of waiting for the magistrate." § 4. Commencement of the Libellers. § 5. Dr. Bridges publishes his "defence.' § 6. The Libellers most violent during the danger from the Spaniards. Martin Mar-Prelate. § 8. Specimens of the Libels. § 9. Seizure of the Press. § 10. Udal condemned; execution of Penry. § 11. Answers to the Libels. § 12. Attempt to put down the Discipline; arrest and trial of Cartwright. § 13. The Act 35 Eliz. c. 1. § 14. Its salutary effects. § 15. The Sectaries in Holland.

§ 1. Ir was soon apparent that the Puritans were not discouraged by the defeat which they had experienced in the Parliament of 1584. Parliament met again in October 1586, when a "Supplication" was offered by them to the House of Commons accusing the bishops of neglect of their duties, and harshness and cruelty towards the deserving preachers of the Word, on account of their neglect of vain ceremonies. They prayed Parliament to attend to their supplication, and with it they offered a "survey," which professed to give for the whole of England tables showing the number of benefices, the number of preachers, and the number of double-beneficed and non-resident clergy. This paper makes the number of preachers for the whole of England amount only to 2000.1 On February 27 (1587), it was moved: "that all laws then in force touching the ecclesiastical settlement might be repealed, and that the book (of Discipline, etc.) might be adopted as the legal settlement of Discipline and public worship." The House, however, refused to allow the bill or book to be introduced. The queen, on receiving a copy of the supplication and survey, answered decidedly that she " fully satisfied with the reformation that had taken place, and minded not now to begin to settle herself in causes of religion. She had considered their objections, and examined their platform, and accounted it most prejudicial to the religion established, to her

was

1 Neal's Puritans, i. 374-5-6. By returns made shortly before this to Archbishop Whitgift, he had calculated the number of preachers at 3000, the whole clergy amounting to 9000.

2 Strype's Whilgift, b iii. c. 17. Bancroft's Dangerous Positions, b. iii. c. 5.

crown, her government, and her subjects.

Supposing some things expedient to be always

to be amiss in the Church, yet it was not making new laws. The clergy were the best judges in these matters, and this petition interfered with her Prerogative Ecclesiastical, which had been conferred on her by Parliament."1

§ 2. Foiled thus in their attempts to get the Discipline enacted by law, those who favoured it determined to endeavour to uphold it by a solemn mutual pledge. Four and twenty ministers of the classis of Warwick and Northampton subscribed the Book of Discipline as binding upon them. They were followed by others (according to Neal) to the number of 500.2

§ 3. But now arose a question which threatened to cause a disruption in the Puritan body. Were they by the force of the obligation of having subscribed the Book of Discipline to be constrained at once to practise it at all hazards, or were they "to tarry for the magistrate," wait until it was made legal. Some of them came to the conclusion "that since the magistrate could not be induced to reform the discipline of the Church by so many petitions and supplications, it was lawful to proceed without him, and introduce a reformation in the best manner possible." On the other hand, some of the classis voted "that touching the restoration of ecclesiastical discipline, it ought to be taught to the people as occasion should serve, and that as yet the people are not to be solicited publicly to practise the Discipline till they be better instructed in the knowledge of it. That men of better understanding are to be allured privately to the present allowing of the Discipline, and the practice of it, as far as they shall be well able with the peace of the Church.”3

§ 4. The more violent of the party, exasperated by this temporising policy of their brethren, determined to precipitate matters at any cost, and to make that "peace of the Church," which was so much prized, a thing impossible. They commenced from this period a series of libellous attacks directed against the bishops, which, under the general name of the Mar-prelate Libels have inflicted an eternal disgrace upon their party. The first notable publication of this character was a pamphlet called an Abstract of Certain Acts of Parliament. In this the writer stigmatises the laws relating to the Church as "popish, and to be abandoned, a froth and filth to be spewed out of the commonweal. And it were not a dodkin matter if all the books thereof were laid in a heap in Smithfield and sacrificed in the fire to the Lord." Another book, called Counterpoison, endeavoured to prove that the Church 1 Bancroft's Dangerous Positions, b. iii. c. 17. 2 Puritans, i. 381.

3 Heylin's Presbyterians, p. 278.

of England was no true Church, inasmuch as it lacked Discipline. And in a pamphlet called A Request Against Cathedrals, the author prays that "all cathedral churches may be put down, where the service of God is grievously abused by piping with organs, singing, ringing, and trowling of psalms from one side of the choir to the other, with the squealing of chanting choristers, disguised, as are all the rest, in white surplices, some in corner caps and filthy copes, imitating the fashion and manner of anti-Christ the pope. These unprofitable drones consume yearly, some £2500, some £3000, some more, whereof no profit cometh to the Church of God. They are the dens of idle loitering lubbards, the harbourers of time-serving hyprocrites, where prebends and livings belong, some to gentlemen, some to boys, and some to serving-men and others." 1

§ 5. Dr. Bridges, Dean of Salisbury, thought to stem these violent attacks by publishing (1587) A Defence of the Government of the Church of England, but this only gave occasion to fresh scurrilities. Mr. Fenner in reply said: "Our righteous souls are vexed with seeing and hearing the ignorance, the profane speeches, and evil examples of those thrust upon our charges, while we ourselves are defamed, reproached, scoffed at, and called seditious and rebellious. Upon every irreligious man's complaint in such things as many times are incredible, to be sent for by pursuivants, to pay twopence for every mile, to find messengers at our own charges, is not only grievous but heart-burning. Coming by dozens and scores before the bishop, after half a day's disorderly reasoning, some not being heard to the full, some railed on and miscalled, none with lenity satisfied, but all suspended from our office because we would not subscribe his last two articles.” 2

§ 6. These grievances would have seemed more worthy of pity had not those who were exposed to them thought the proper way of avenging themselves was to pour out a torrent of foul invective against the authorities. Neither can they be acquitted of the crime of taking advantage of England's supreme danger from the Spaniards in the year 1588 to increase the virulence of their attacks.3 It was in this year that the Martin Mar-prelate libels (properly so called) first made their appearance. While the

1 Neal's Puritans, i. 378.

2 lb. i. 385.

In State Papers of Elizabeth (Domestic), under the years 1591-92, there are several papers which show the amount of value which the Spaniards set on the work of what they called "The new sect of the Martinists." Camden asserts that the Puritans deliberately seized this time for their most violent assaults. Heylin asserts the same, giving as the reason that they supposed in this moment of peril they would be secure from the queen and Council.-Presbyterians, p. 280.