ANNO REG. ELIZ. 1, ANNO DOM. 1558, 1559. 1. ELIZABETH, the only child then living of King Henry the Eighth, succeeded her sister in the throne on the 17th of November, anno 1558; Ferdinand of Austria being then Emperor, Henry the, Second King of the French, Philip the Second King of Spain, and Paul the Fourth commanding in the Church of Rome. Queen Mary not long before her death had called a Parliament, which was then sitting when the news thereof was brought unto the Lords in the house of Peers. The news by reason of the Queen’s long sickness not so strange unto them as to take them either unresolved or unprovided for the declaring of their duty to the next successor; though some of then, perhaps, had some secret wishes that the Crown might have fallen rather upon any other than upon her to whom it did of right belong; so that, upon a short debate amongst themselves, a message is sent to the Speaker of the House of Commons, desiring him and all the members of that house to come presently to them, upon a business of no small importance to the good of the kingdom. Who being come, the Lord Chancellor Heath, with a composed and settled countenance, not without sorrow enough for the death of the one, or any discontent for the succession of the other, declared unto them, in the name of the rest of the Lords, that God had taken to his mercy the late Queen Mary, and that the succession to the Crown did belong of right to the Princess Elizabeth, whose title they conceived to be free from all legal questions; that in such cases nothing was more necessary than expedition, for the preventing of all such plots and practices of any discontented or ambitious persons as might be set on foot to the disturbance of the common quiet: and therefore that their concurrence was desired in proclaiming the new Queen with all speed that might be, they being then so opportunely convened together as the representees of the whole body of the Commons of the Realm of England. Which being said, the Knights and Burgesses gave a ready consent to that which they had no reason to deny; and they which gave themselves some thoughts of inclining otherwise, conceived their opposition to the general vote neither safe nor seasonable. So that immediately the Princess Elizabeth was proclaimed by the King at Arms, first before Westminster Hall door in the Palace Yard, in 27 the presence of the Lords and Commons, and not long after at the Cross in Cheapside and other places in the City, in the presence of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and principal citizens, to the great joy of all peaceable and well affected people. 2. It was not long before the Princess had advertisement of the death of her sister, together with the general acknowledgement of her just and lawful title to the Crown Imperial. The news whereof being brought unto her by some of the Lords, she prepared for her removal from Hatfield on the Saturday after, (being the 19th of that month) and with a great and royal train set forwards to London. At Highgate, four miles from the city, she was met by all the Bishops then living, who presented themselves before her upon their knees, in testimony of their loyalty and affection to her. In which address as she seemed to express no small contentment, so she gave to each of them particularly her hand to kiss, except only unto Bonner of London, whose bloody butcheries had rendered him incapable in her opinion of so great a favor. At her first coming to the city she took her lodging in the Charterhouse, where she staid some days, till all things in the Tower might be fitted and prepared for her reception. Attended by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, with a stately train of lords and ladies and their several followers, she entereth by Cripplegate into the city, passeth along the wall till she came to Bishops-gate, where all the companies of the city in their several liveries waited her coming in their proper and distinct ranks, reaching from thence until the further end of Mark Lane, where she was entertained with a peal of great ordnance from the Tower. At her entrance into which place, she rendered her most humble thanks to Almighty God for the great and wondrous change of her condition, in bringing her from being a prisoner in that place to be the Prince of her people, and now to take possession of it as a royal palace in which before she had received so much discomfort. Here she remained till the 5th day of December then next following, and from thence removed by water unto Somerset House. In each remove she found such infinite throngs of people, who flocked from all parts to behold her, both by land and water, and testified their public joy by such loud acclamations as much rejoiced her heart to hear, and could not but express it in her words and countenance, by which she doubled their affections, and made herself the absolute mistress at all times of their hands and purses. She had been forged upon the anvil of adversity, which made her of so fine a temper that none knew better than herself how to keep her state, and yet descend unto the meanest of her subjects in a popular courtship. 3. In the meantime the Lords of the Council had given order for the stopping of all ports and havens, that no intelligence of the Queen’s death might be carried out of the realm by which any disturbance might be plotted or contrived against it till all things were settled here at home. But, finding such a general concurrence in all sorts of people in acknowledging her just and lawful title, testified by so many outward signs of a public joy, that there was no fear of any danger from abroad, that bar was speedily removed, and the ports opened as before to all sorts of passengers. And in the next place care was taken for sending new commissions unto such Embassadors as resided in the Courts of several Princes, both to acquaint them with the change, and to assure those Princes of the Queen’s desire to maintain all former leagues between them and the Crown of England; but more particular instructions were directed to her agent in the Court of Spain; to whom it was given in charge to represent unto the King the dear remembrance which she kept of those many humanities received from him in the time of her troubles. Instructions are sent also to Sir Edward Karn, the late Queen’s agent with the Pope, and now confirmed by her in the same employment, to make his Holiness acquainted with the death of Queen Mary, and her succession to the Crown, not without some desire that all good offices might be reciprocally exchanged between them. But the Pope answered hereunto (according to his accustomed rigor), “That the kingdom of England was held in fee of the apostolic see; that she could not succeed, being illegitimate; that he could not contradict the declarations of Clement the Seventh and Paul the Third; that it was a great boldness to assume the name and government of it without him; yet, being desirous to show a fatherly affection, if she will renounce her pretensions, and refer herself wholly to his free disposition, he will do whatsoever may be done with the honor of the apostolic see.” To the making of which sudden answer though there needed no other instigation of his own rough nature, yet many thought that he was put upon it by some ministers of the Court of France, who, fearing nothing more than that Philip will endeavor by a second marriage to assure himself of the possession of the realm of England, and to that end solicit for a dispensation to make way unto it, thought it expedient to prevent those practices in the first beginning, by putting the Pope upon such counsels as would be sure to dash all his hopes that way. 4. But the new Queen, having performed this office of civility to him as she did to others, expected not the coming back of any answer, nor took much thought of it when she heard it. She knew full well that her legitimation and the Pope’s Supremacy could not stand together, and that she could not possibly maintain the one without the discarding of the other. But in this case it concerned her to walk very warily, and not to unmask herself too much at once, for fear of giving an alarm to the Papal party before she had put herself into a posture of ability to make good her actions. Many who were, imprisoned for the cause of religion she restored to liberty at - her first coming to the Crown. Which occasioned Rainsford, a buffonly gentleman of the Court, to make a suit to her in the behalf of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, who had been long imprisoned in a Latin translation, that they might also be restored to liberty, and walk abroad as formerly in the English tongue. To whom she presently made answer, “That he should first endeavor to know the minds of the prisoners, who perhaps desired no such liberty as was demanded.” Which not withstanding, upon a serious debate of all particulars, she was resolved to proceed to a Reformation, as the times should serve. In order whereunto she constitutes her Privy Council, which she compounds of such ingredients as might neither give encouragement to any of those who wished well to the Church of Rome, or alienate their affections from her whose hearts were more inclined to the Reformation. Of such as had been of the Council to the Queen her sister, she retained the Lord Archbishop of York, the Lord Marquess of Winchester, the Earls of Arundel, Shrewsbury, Darby, and Pembroke, the Lords Clynton and Effingham, Sir Thomas Cheiney, Sir William Petre, Sir John Mason, Sir Richard Sackvile, and Doctor Wotton; to whom she added of her own, the Marquess of Northampton, the Earl of Bedford, Sir Thomas Parry, Sir Edward Rogers, Sir Ambrose Cave, Sir William Cecil, and Sir Nicholas Bacon. To which last, being then Attorney of the Duchy of Lancaster, and one that had been much employed by her in some former services which had relation to the Law, she committed the custody of the Great Seal on the 22nd of December; the title of Lord Chancellor remaining to Archbishop Heath, as before it did, and that of the Lord Keeper being given to Bacon; which being a new title, and consequently subject unto some disputes, an Act was passed in the second Parliament of her reign for investing the new Lord Keeper, and all that should from thenceforth enjoy that office, with all the powers, privileges, and preeminences which anciently had been exercised and enjoyed by the Lord Chancellor of England, and for confirming of all sentences and decrees in Chancery which had or should be made by the said Lord Keepers in all times to come. The like mixture she also caused to be made amongst other her subordinate ministers, in adding such new Commissioners for the Peace in every county as either were known to be of the reformed religion or to wish well to it. 5. The preferring of so many of the Protestant party, as well to places of employment in their several countries as to the rank and dignity of Privy Councilors, and the refusal of her hand to Bishop Bonner at her very first coming to the Crown, were taken to be strong presumptions (as indeed they were), that she intended to restore the reformed religion. And as the Papists, in the first beginning of the reign of Queen Mary, hoping thereby the better to obtain her favor, began to build new altars and set up the Mass, before they were required so to do by any public authority; so fared it now with many unadvised zealots amongst the Protestants, who, measuring the Queen’s affections by their own, or else presuming that their errors would be taken for an honest zeal, employed themselves as busily in the demolishing of altars and defacing of images, as if they had been licensed and commanded to it by some legal warrant. It happened also, that some of the Ministers which remained at home, and others which returned in great numbers from beyond the seas, had put themselves into the pulpits, and bitterly inveighed against the superstitions and corruptions of the Church of Rome. The Popish preachers did the like, and were not sparing of invectives against the others, whom they accused of heresies, schisms, and innovation in the worship of God. For the suppressing of which disorders on the one side, and those common disturbances on the other, the Queen set out two Proclamations much about one time; by one of which it was commanded that no man, of what persuasion soever he was in the points of religion, should be suffered from thenceforth to preach in public, but only such as should be licensed by her authority; and that all such as were so licensed or appointed should forbear preaching upon any point which was matter of controversy, and might conduce rather to exasperate than to calm men’s passions. Which Proclamation was observed with such care and strictness, that no sermon was preached at St Paul’s Cross or any public place in London till the Easter following. At what time the sermons which were to be preached in the Spittle (according to the ancient custom) were performed by Doctor Bill, the Almoner to the Queen, and afterwards the first Dean of Westminster of the Queen’s foundation, Doctor Richard Cox, formerly Dean of Westminster, preferred in short time after to the see of Ely, and Mr Robert Horn (of whom mention hath been made before at the troubles of Franckfort), advanced not long after to the see of Winchester. The rehearsal sermon, accustomably preached at St Paul’s Cross on the Sunday following, was undertook by Doctor Thomas Sampson, then newly returned from beyond the seas, and after most unhappily made Dean of Christ-Church. But so it chanced that when he was to go into the pulpit the door was locked, and the key thereof not to be found, so that a smith was sent for to break open the door; and that being done, the like necessity was found-of cleansing and making sweet the place, which by a long disuse had contracted so much filth and nastiness as rendered it unfit for another preacher. 6. By the other Proclamation, which was published on the 30th of December, it was enjoined, That no man, of what quality or degree soever, should presume to alter anything in the state of religion, or innovate in any of the rites and ceremonies thereunto belonging, but that all such rites and ceremonies should be observed in all parish-churches of the kingdom as were then used and retained in her Majesty’s Chapel, until some further order should be taken in it. Only it was permitted, and withal required, that the Litany, the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments, should be said in the English tongue, and that the Epistle and the Gospel at the time of the High Mass should be read in English; which was accordingly done in all the churches of London on the next Sunday after, being New-Year’s day, and by degrees in all the other churches of the kingdom also. Further than this she thought it not convenient to proceed at the present, but that she had commanded the Priest or Bishop (for some say it was the one, and some the other), who officiated at the altar in the Chapel-Royal, not to make any elevation of the Sacrament, the better to prevent that adoration which was given unto it, and which she could not suffer to be done in her sight without a most apparent wrong to her judgment and conscience; which being made known in other places, and all other churches being commanded to conform themselves to the example of the Chapel, the elevation was forborne also in most other places, to the great discontent and trouble of the Popish party. And though there was no further progress toward a Reformation by any public act or edict, yet secretly a Reformation in the form of worship, and consequently in point of doctrine, was both intended and projected. For, — making none acquainted with her secret purposes but the Lord Marquess of Northampton, Francis, Earl of Bedford, Sir John Gray of Pergo, (one of the late Duke of Suffolk’s brothers,) and Sir William Cecil — she committed the reviewing of the former Liturgy to the care of Doctor Parker, Doctor Gryndal, Doctor Cox, Doctor Pilkington, Doctor Bill, Doctor May, and Mr Whitehead, together with Sir Thomas Smith, Doctor of the Laws, a very learned, moderate, and judicious gentleman. But what they did, and what preferments they attained to on the doing of it, we shall see anon, when we shall find the book reviewed, confirmed by Act of Parliament, and executed in all parts of the kingdom as that Act required. 7. But first, some public acts of State and great solemnities of Court are to be performed. The funeral of the Queen deceased, solemnized on the 13th of December at the Abbey of Westminster, and the sermon preached by Doctor White, then Bishop of Winchester, seemed only as a preamble to the like solemnity performed at the said place about ten days after, in the obsequies of Charles the Fifth; which mighty Emperor, having first left the world by resigning his kingdoms and retiring himself into a monastery, as before was said, did after leave his life also in September last; and now, upon the 24th of this present December, a solemn obsequy was kept for him in the wonted form, — a rich hearse being set up for him in the Church of Westminster, magnificently covered with a pall of gold, his own Embassador serving as the principal mourner, and all the great lords and officers about the Court attending on the same in their ranks and orders. And yet both these, though stately’ and majestical in their several kinds, came infinitely short of those pomps and triumphs which were prepared and reserved for the Coronation. As a preparation whereunto, she passed from Westminster to the Tower on the 12th of January, attended by the Lord Mayor, the Aldermen and other citizens, in their barges, with the banners and escutcheons of their several companies, loud music sounding all the way; and the next day she restored some unto their old, and advanced others to new honors, according to her own fancy and their descryings. The Marquess of Northampton, who had lain under an attaindure ever since the first beginning of the reign of Queen Mary, she restored in blood, with all his titles and estates. The Lord Edward Seimour, eldest son to the late Duke of Somerset, was by her reconfirmed in the titles of Viscount Beauchamp and Earl of Hartford, which had been formerly entailed upon him by Act of Parliament. The Lord Thomas Howard, second son of Thomas, the late Duke of Norfolk, and brother to Henry, Earl of Surrey, (beheaded in the last days of King Henry the Eighth) she advanced to the title of Viscount Howard of Bindon. She also preferred Sir Oliver St Johns, who derived himself frown the Lady Margaret, daughter of John, Duke of Somerset, from whom the Queen herself descended, to the dignity of Lord St John of Bletsoe; and Sir Henry Carie, son of Sir William Carie, Knight, and of Mary Bollen his wife, the only sister of Queen Anne Bollen, she promoted to the honor and degree of Lord Carie of Hunsdon. 8. The ordinary acts of grace and favor being thus dispatched, she prepares the next morning for a triumphant passage through London to her Palace at Westminster. But first, before she takes her chariot, she is said to have lifted up her eyes to heaven, and to have used some words to this or the like effect: — “O Lord, Almighty and everliving God, I give thee most hearty thanks that thou hast been so merciful unto me as to spare me to see this joyful day. And I acknowledge that thou hast dealt as wonderfully and as mercifully with me as thou didst with thy true and faithful servant Daniel thy Prophet, whom thou deliveredst out of the den from the cruelty of the raging greedy lions. Even so was I overwhelmed, and only by thee delivered; to thee only be thanks, honor, and praise for ever. Amen.” Which said, she mounted into her chariot with so clear a spirit as if she had been made for that day’s solemnity. Entertained all the way she went with the joyful shouts and acclamations of “God save the Queen!” which she repaid with such a modest affability and so good a grace that it drew tears of joy from the eyes of some, with infinite prayers and thanksgiving from the hearts of all; but nothing more endeared her to them, than the accepting of an English Bible richly gilt, which was let down from one of the pageants by a child representing Truth. At the sight whereof she first kissed both her hands, with both her hands she received the book, which first she kissed and after laid unto her bosom, (as the nearest place unto her heart), giving the city greater thanks for that excellent gift than for all the rest which plentifully had been that day bestowed upon her, and promised to be diligent in the reading of it. By which and many other acts of popular piety, with which she passed away that day, she did not only gain the hearts of all them that saw her, but they that saw her did so magnify her most eminent graces that. they procured the like affections in the hearts of all others also. 9. On the next morning, with like magnificence and splendor, she is attended to the Church of St Peter in Westminster, where she was crowned according to the order of the Roman Pontifical by Dr Owen Oglethorp, Bishop of Carlisle, the only man among all the Bishops who could be wrought on by her to perform that office. Whether it. were that they saw some alteration coming, to which they were resolved not to yield conformity, so that they could not be in a worse case upon this refusal than they should be otherwise; or that they feared the Pope’s displeasure, if they should do an act so contrary unto his pretensions without leave first granted; or that they had their own particular animosities and spleens against her, (as the Archbishop of York particularly, for his being deprived of the Seal) — is not certainly known. None more condemned for the refusal than the Bishop of Ely, as one that had received his first preferment from the King her father, and who complied so far in the time of King Edward as to assist in the composing of the public Liturgy, and otherwise appeared as forward in the Reformation as any other of that order. So that no reason can be given either for his denial now to perform that service, or afterwards for his not complying with the Queen’s proceedings, but that he had been one of those which were sent to Ronge to tender the submission of the kingdom to the Pope still living, and could not now appear with honor in any such action as seemed to carry with it a repugnancy (if not a manifest inconsistency) with the said engagement. It cannot be denied but that there were three Bishops living of King Edward’s making, all of them zealously affected to the Reformation; and possibly it may seem strange that the Queen received not the Crown rather from one of their hands, than to put herself unto the hazard of so many denials as had been given her by the others. But unto this it may be answered, that the said Bishops at that time were deprived of their sees, — (but whether justly or unjustly, could not then be questioned) — and therefore not in a capacity to perform that service. Besides, there being at that time no other form established for a Coronation than that which had much in it of the ceremonies and superstitions of the Church of Rome, she was not sure that any of the said three Bishops would have acted in it, without such alterations and omissions in the whole course of that order as might have rendered the whole action questionable amongst captious men; and therefore finally she thought it more conductible to her reputation amongst foreign Princes to be crowned by the hands of a Catholic Bishop, (or one at least which was accounted to be such), than if it had been done by any of the other religion. 10. And now the Parliament draws on, summoned to begin on the 25th of that month, being the Anniversary day of St Paul’s Conversion; a day which seemed to carry some good omen in it in reference to that great work of the Reformation which was therein to be established. The Parliament opened with an eloquent and learned sermon, preached by Dr Cox, a man of good credit with the Queen, and of no less esteem with the Lords and Commons who carried any good affection to the memory of King Edward the Sixth. The choosing of which man to perform that service was able of. itself to give some intimation of the Queen’s design to most of the auditors; though, to say truth, the Bishops refusing to perform the ceremony of the coronation had made themselves incapable of a further trust. Nor could the Queen’s design be so closely carried, but that such lords and gentlemen as had the managing of elections in their several countries retained such men for members of the House of Commons as they conceived most likely to comply with their intentions for a Reformation. Amongst which none appeared more active than Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, whom the Queen had taken into her Council, Henry Fitz-Allen, Earl of Arundel, whom she continued in the office of Lord Steward, and Sir William Cecil, whom she had restored to the place of Secretary, to which he had been raised by King Edward the Sixth.

Besides, the Queen was young, unmarried, and like enough to entertain some thoughts of an husband; so that it can be no great marvel, not only if many of the nobility, but some even of the gentry also, flattered themselves with possibilities of being the man whom she might choose to be her partner in the regal diadem. Which hopes much smoothed the way to the accomplishment of her desires, which otherwise might have proved more rugged and unpassable than it did at the present. Yet notwithstanding all their care, there wanted not some rough and furious spirits in the House of Commons, who eagerly opposed all propositions which seemed to tend unto the prejudice of the Church of Rome. Of which number none so violent as Story, Doctor of the Laws, and a great instrument of Bonner’s butcheries in the former reign. Who, being questioned for the cruelty of his executions, appeared so far from being sensible of any error which he then committed, as to declare himself to be sorry for nothing more than that, instead of lopping off some few boughs and branches, he did not lay his axe to the root of the tree; and though it was not hard to guess at how high a mark the wretch’s malice seemed to aim, and what he meant by laying his axe to the root of the tree, yet passed he unpunished for the present, though Divine vengeance brought him in conclusion to his just reward. Others there were — and doubtless many others also — in the House of Commons, who had as great zeal as he to the Papal interess, but either had more modesty in the conduct of it, or preferred their duty and allegiance to their natural Prince before their zeal to the concernments of the Church of Rome. 11. In this Parliament there passed an Act for recognizing the Queen’s just title to the Crown; but without any Act for the validity of her mother’s marriage, on which her title most depended. For which neglect most men condemned the new Lord Keeper, on whose judgment she relied especially in point of law; in whom it could not but be looked on as a great incogitancy, to be less careful of her own and her mother’s honor than the Ministers of the late Queen Mary had been of hers. But Bacon was not to be told of an old law maxim, that “the Crown takes away all defects and stops in blood, and that, from the time that the Queen did assume the Crown, the fountain was cleared, and all attainders and corruption of blood discharged.” Which maxim, how unsafe soever it may seem to others, yet, since it goes for a known rule amongst our lawyers, could not be questioned at that present. And possible it is that he conceived it better for the marriage of the Queen’s mother to pass unquestioned, as a matter justly subject unto no dispute, than to build the validity of it on no better ground than an Act of Parliament, which might be as easily reversed as it was agreed to. There passed an Act also for restoring to the Crown the tenths and first-fruits, first settled thereon in the time of King Henry the Eighth, and afterwards given back by Queen Mary, as before was said. For the better drawing on of which concession, it was pretended that the patrimony of the Crown had been much dilapidated, and that it could not be supported with such honor as it ought to be, if restitution were not made of such rents and profits as were of late dismembered from it. Upon which ground they also passed an Act for the dissolution of all such monasteries, convents, and religions orders, as had been founded and established by the Queen deceased. By virtue of which Act the Queen was repossessed again of all those lands which had been granted by her sister to the Monks of Westminster and Shene, the Knights Hospitalers, the Nuns of Sion, together with the mansion-houses re-edified for the Observants at Greenwich, and the Black Friars in Smithfield. Which last, being planted in a house near the dissolved Priory of Great St Bartholomew’s, had again fitted and prepared the church belonging thereunto for religious offices; but had scarce fitted and prepared it when dissolved again, and the church afterwards made a parochial church for the use of the Close and such as lived within the verge and precincts thereof.

How she disposed of Sion House, hath been shown already; and what she did with the rich Abbey of Westminster, we shall see hereafter. 12. In the passing of these Acts there was little trouble; in the next, there was. For when the Act of the Supremacy came to be debated, it seemed to be a thing abhorrent even in nature and polity, that a woman should be declared to be the Supreme Head on earth of the Church of England. But those of the reformed party meant nothing less than to contend about words and phrases, so they might gain the point they aimed at, which was the stripping of the Pope of all authority within these dominions, and fixing the supreme power over all persons and estates, of what rank soever, in the Crown Imperial, — not by the name of Supreme Head, which they perceived might be made liable to some just exceptions; but, which comes all to one, of the Supreme Governess. Which, when it gave occasion of discourse and descant amongst many of the captious Papists, Queen Mary helped her sister unto one good argument for her justification, and the Queen helped herself to another, which took off the cavil. In the third Session of Parliament in Queen Mary’s time, there passed an Act declaring, “That the Regal power was in the Queen’s Majesty, as fully as it had been in any of her predecessors.” In the body whereof it is expressed and declared, “That the law of the realm is, and ever hath been, and ought to be, understood, that the kingly or regal office of the realm, and all dignities, prerogatives royal, power, preeminences, privileges, authorities, and jurisdictions thereunto annexed, united, or belonging, being invested either in male or female, are, be, and ought to be, as fully, wholly, absolutely and entirely, deemed, adjudged, accepted, invested, and taken, in the one as in the other. So that whatsoever statute or law doth limit or appoint that the King of this realm may or shall have, execute, and do any thing as King, etc., the same the Queen (being Supreme Governess, possessor, and inheritor to the Imperial Crown of this realm) may by the same power have and execute, to all intents, constructions, and purposes, without doubt, ambiguity, scruple, or question, any custom, use, or any, other thing to the contrary notwithstanding.” By the very- tenor of which Act Queen Mary grants unto her sister as much authority in all Church-concernments as had been exercised and enjoyed by her father and brother according to any Act or Acts of Parliament in their several tithes. Which Acts of Parliament, as our learned lawyers have declared upon these occasions, were not to be considered as introductory of a new power which was not in the Crown before, but only declaratory of an old, which naturally belonged to all Christian princes, and amongst others to the Kings and Queens of the realm of England. 13. And to this purpose it is pleaded by the Queen in her own behalf. Some busy and seditious persons had dispersed a rumor, that by the Act for recognizing of the Queen’s supremacy there was something further ascribed unto the Queen, her heirs, and successors, — a power of administering divine service in the Church, which neither by any equity or true sense of the words could from thence be gathered; and thereupon she makes this declaration unto all her subjects: — “That nothing was or could be meant or intended by the said Act, than was acknowledged to be due to the most noble King of famous memory, King Henry the Eighth, her Majesty’s father, or King Edward the Sixth, her Majesty’s brother.” And further she declareth, “That she neither doth nor will challenge any other authority by the same than was challenged and lately used by the said two Kings, and was of ancient time due unto the Imperial Crown of this realm; that is, under God to have the sovereignty and rule over all persons born within her realms or dominions, of what estate (either ecclesiastical or temporal) soever they be, so as no other foreign power shall or ought to have any superiority over them.” Which explication, published in the Queen’s Injunctions, anno 1559, not giving such a general satisfaction to that groundless cavil as was expected and intended, the Bishops and Clergy in their Convocation of the year 1562, by the Queen’s authority and consent, declared more plainly; that is to say, “That they gave not to their Princes, by virtue of the said Act or otherwise, either the ministering of God’s word or sacraments, but that only prerogative which they saw to have been given always to all godly Princes in holy Scripture by God himself; that is to say, that they should rule all estates and degrees committed to their charge by God, whether they be ecclesiastical or temporal, and restrain with the civil sword the stubborn and evildoers.” 14. By all which if the cavils of the adversary be not fully answered, it would be known upon what reason they should question that in a sovereign Queen which they allow in many eases to a Lady Abbess. For that an Abbess may be capable of all and all manner of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, even to the denouncing of that dreadful sentence of excommunication, and that they may lawfully exercise the same upon all such as live within the verge of their authority, is commonly acknowledged by their greatest canonists. First, for suspension, it is affirmed by their Gloss that an Abbess may suspend such clerks as are subject to her, both from their benefice and office. And questionless either to suspend a Clerk, or to bring his Church under the sentence of an interdict, is one of the chief parts of ecclesiastical or spiritual censures. Nor have they this authority only by way of delegation from the Pope in some certain cases, — as is affirmed by Aquinas, Durandus, Sylvester, Dominicus Soto, and many other of their schoolmen, — but in an ordinary way, as properly and personally invested in them, — which is the general opinion of their greatest canonists.

Next, for the Sacraments, it is sufficiently known that the ministration of Baptism is performed by midwives and many other women, as of common course; not only as a thing connived at in extreme necessity, but as a necessary duty, in which they are to be instructed against all emergencies by their parish priests; for which we have the testimony of the late Lord Legate, in the articles published by him for his visitation. And finally, for excommunication, it is affirmed by Paludanus and Navarre (none of the meanest in the pack), that the Pope may grant that power to a woman also; higher than which there can be none exercised in the Church by the sons of men. And if a Pope may grant these powers unto a woman, as to a Prioress or Abbess or to any other, there can be then no incapacity in the sex for exercising any part of that jurisdiction which was restored unto the Crown by this Act of Parliament. And if perhaps it be objected that a Lady Abbess is an ecclesiastical or spiritual person in regard of her office, which cannot be affirmed of Queens, Pope Gregory himself will come in to help us, by whom it was not thought unfit to commit the cognizance of a cause concerning the purgation of a Bishop who stood charged with some grievous crime to Brunichildis, or Brunholt, Queen of France; of which although the Gloss upon the Decretals be pleased to say, That the Pope stretched his power too far in this particular, yet Gregory did no more therein but what the Popes may do, and have done of late times by their own confession; so little ground there is for so great a clamor as hath been made by Bellarmine and other of the popish Jesuits upon this occasion. 15. Brow for the better exercising and enjoying of the jurisdiction thus recognized unto the Crown, there are two clauses in the Act of great importance; the first whereof contains an oath, for the acknowledgement and defense of the Supremacy, not only in the Queen, but her heirs and successors; the said oath to be taken by all Archbishops, Bishops, and all other ecclesiastical persons, and also by all temporal judges, justiciaries, mayors, or any other temporal officers, etc. For the refusal whereof, when lawfully tendered to them by such as were thereto commissionated under the Great Seal of England, every such person so refusing was actually to stand deprived of his or their ecclesiastical preferments, or other temporal office, of what sort soever; only it was provided that the oath should not be imposed on any of the temporal peers, of whose fidelity the Queen seemed willing to assure herself without any such tie; though this exemption was esteemed by others but a piece of cunning, the better to facilitate the passing of that Act amongst them, which otherwise they might have hindered. But this provision was not made till the following Parliament, though for the reason before mentioned it was promised now. By the last clause it was enacted,” That it should and might be lawful to the Queen, her heirs, and successors, by letters patents under the Great Seal of England, to assign, name, and authorize, when and as often as her Highness, her heirs, or successors, should think convenient, such persons, being natural-born subjects to them, to exercise, use, and occupy, under her Highness, her heirs, and successors, all manner of jurisdictions, privileges, and pre-eminences, in any wise touching or concerning any spiritual or ecclesiastical jurisdiction, within the realm of England and Ireland, or any other her Highness’ dominions or countries, and to visit, reform, redress, order, correct, and amend all such errors, heresies, schisms, abuses, offenses, contempts, and enormities whatsoever, which by any manner of spiritual or ecclesiastical power, authority, or jurisdiction, or can or may lawfully be reformed, ordered, redressed, corrected, restrained, or amended, to the pleasure of Almighty God, the increase of virtue, and conservation of the peace and unity of this realm.” With a proviso notwithstanding, that nothing should from thenceforth be accounted for heresy, but what was so adjudged in the Holy Scripture, or in one of the four first general Councils, or in any other national or provincial Council, determining according to the Word of God; or, finally, which should be so adjudged in the time to come by the Court of Parliament, first having the assent of the Bishops and Clergy in their Convocation. This was the first foundation of that famous Court of High Commission, the principal bulwark and preservative of the Church of England against the practices and assaults of all her adversaries, whether popish or puritan. And from hence issued that Commission by which the Queen’s ministers proceeded in their visitation in the first year of her reign, for rectifying all such things as they found amiss, and could not be redressed by any ordinary episcopal power without the spending of more time than the exigencies of the Church could then admit of. 16. There also passed another Act for recommending and imposing the Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, according to such alterations and corrections as were made therein by those who were appointed to revise it, as before is said. In the performance of which service, there was great care taken for expunging all such passages in it as might give any scandal or offense to the popish party, or be urged by them in excuse for their not coming to Church and joining with the rest of the congregation in God’s public worship. In the Litany first made and published by King Henry the Eighth, and afterwards continued in the two Liturgies of King Edward the Sixth, there was a prayer to be delivered “from the tyranny and all the detestable enormities of the Bishop of Rome;” which was thought fit to be expunged, as giving matter of scandal and disaffection to all that party, or that otherwise wished well to that religion. In the first Liturgy of King Edward, the Sacrament of the Lord’s Body was delivered with this benediction, that is to say, “The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for the preservation of thy body and soul to life everlasting; The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ,” etc.

Which, being thought by Calvin and his disciples to give some countenance to the gross and carnal presence of Christ in the sacrament, which passeth by the name of transubstantiation in the schools of Rome, was altered into this form in the second Liturgy, that is to say, “Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving. Take and drink this,” etc. But the revisers of the book joined both forms together, lest, under color of rejecting a carnal, they might be thought also to deny such a real presence as was defended in the writings of the ancient Fathers. Upon which ground they expunged also a whole rubric at the end of the Communion Service, by which it was declared that kneeling at the participation of the sacrament was required for no other reason than for a signification of the humble and grateful acknowledging of the benefits of Christ given therein unto the worthy receiver, and to avoid that profanation and disorder which otherwise might have ensued, and not for giving any adoration to the sacramental bread and wine there bodily received, “or in regard of any real and essential presence of Christ’s body and blood” And to come up the closer to those of the Church of Rome, it was ordered by the Queen’s Injunctions, that the sacramental bread (which the book required only to be made of the finest flour) should be made round, in fashion of the wafers used in the time of Queen Mary. She also ordered that the Lord’s table should be placed where the altar stood, that the accustomed reverence should be made at the name of Jesus, music retained in the Church, and all the old festivals observed with their several eves. By which compliances, and the expunging of the passages before remembered, the book was made so passable amongst the Papists, that for ten years they generally repaired to their parish-churches without doubt or scruple, as is affirmed not only by Sir Edward Coke, in his speech against Garnet, and his charge given at the assizes held at Norwich, but also by the Queen herself, in a letter to Sir Francis Walsingham, then being her resident or Leiger-Embassador in the Court of-France; the same confessed by Sanders also in his book de Schismate. 17. And that the book might pass the better in both Houses when it came to the vote, it was thought requisite that a disputation should be held about some points which were most likely to be checked at; the disputants to be five Bishops and four other learned men of the one side, and nine of the most learned men, graduated in the schools, on the other side; the disputation to begin on the 30th of March, and to be holden in the Church of Westminster, in the presence of as many of the Lords of the Council and of the members of both Houses as were desirous to inform themselves in the state of the questions. The disputation for that reason to be held in the English tongue, and to be managed (for the better avoiding of confusion) by a mutual interchange of writings upon every point — those writings which were mutually given in upon one day to be reciprocally answered on another, and so from day to (lay till the whole were ended. To all which points the Bishops gave consent for themselves and the rest of their party, though they refused to stand unto them when it came to the trial. The points to be disputed on were three in number, that is to say: 1. “That it is against the Word of God and the - custom of the ancient Church, to use a tongue unknown to the people in Common Prayer, and in the administration of the Sacraments. 2. That every Church hath authority to appoint, take away, and change ceremonies and ecclesiastical rites, so the same be to edification. 3. That it cannot be proved by the word of God that there is in the Mass offered up a sacrifice propitiatory for the living and the dead.”

And for the disputants of each side, they were these that follow, that is to say, first, for the Popish party, Dr White, Bishop of Winchester, Dr Bayne, Bishop of Lichfield, Dr Scot, Bishop of.

Chester, and Dr Watson, Bishop of Lincoln, Dr Fecknam, Abbot of Westminster, Dr Henry Cole, Dean of St Patti’s, Dr Harpsfield, Archdeacon of Canterbury, Dr Chadsey, Prebendary of St Paul’s, and Dr Langdale, Archdeacon of Lewis in Sussex. For those of the Protestant persuasion appeared Dr Scory, the late Bishop of Chichester, Dr Cox, the late Dean of Westminster, Dr Sandys, late Master of Katherine Hall, Mr Horn, the late Dean of Durham, Mr Elmar, late Archdeacon of Stow, Mr Whitehead, Mr Gryndal, Mr Guest, and Mr Jewel; all of which, except only Whitehead, attained afterwards to some eminent place in the sacred hierarchy. 18. The day being come, and the place fitted and accommodated for so great an audience, the Lord Keeper Bacon takes the chair as Moderator, — not for determining anything in the points disputed, but for seeing good order to be kept, and that the Disputation might be managed in the form agreed on. When, contrary to expectation, the Bishops and their party brought nothing in writing to be read publicly in the hearing of all the auditors, but came resolved to try it out by word of mouth, and to that end appointed Cole to be their spokesman. For which neglect being reproved by the Lord Keeper, they promised a conformity on the Monday following, being the second day of April; but would not stand unto it then, because they would not give their adversaries so much leisure as a whole night’s deliberation to return an answer. Desired and pressed by the Lord Keeper to proceed according to the form agreed on, for the better satisfaction and contentment of so great an audience, it was most obstinately denied; Watson and White behaving themselves with so little reverence (or so much insolency rather), as to threaten the Queen with excommunication in that public audience; for which they were committed to the Tower on the fifth of April. The rest of the Bishops were commanded to abide in London, and to give bond for their appearance at the Council-table whensoever they should be required. And so the whole assembly was dismissed, and the conference ended before it had been well begun, — the Lord Keeper giving to the Bishops this sharp remembrance, “Since,” (said he) “you are not willing that we should hear you, you shall very shortly hear from us.” Which notwithstanding produced this good effect in the Lords and Commons, that they conceived the Bishops were not able to defend their doctrine in the points disputed; which made the way more easy for the passing of the public Liturgy, when it was brought unto the vote.

Two speeches there were made against it in the House of Peers, by Scot and Fecknam, and one against the Queen’s supremacy by the Archbishop of York; but they prevailed as little in both points by the power of their eloquence, as they had clone in the first by their want of arguments. 19. It gave much matter of discourse to most knowing men, that the Bishops should so willfully fall from an appointment to which they had before agreed, and thereby forfeit their whole cause to a condemnation.

But they pretended for themselves that they were so straitened in point of time that they could not possibly digest their arguments into form and order; that they looked upon it as a thing too much below them to humble themselves to such a conference or disputation, in which Bacon, a mere layman and of no great learning, was to sit as judge; and finally, that the points had been determined already by the Catholic Church, and therefore were not to be called in question without leave from the Pope. Which last pretense if it were of any weight and moment, it must be utterly impossible to proceed to any Reformation in the state of the Church by which the power and pride of the Popes of Rome may be any thing lessened, or that the corruptions of the Church should be redressed, if it consist not with their profit. For want of time they were no more straitened than the opposite party, — none of them knowing with what arguments the other side would fortify and confirm their cause, nor in what forms they would propose them, before they had perused their reciprocal papers. But nothing was more weakly urged than their exception against the presidency of Sir Nicholas A Bacon, which could not be considered as a matter either new- or strange. Not strange, because the like presidency had been given frequently to Cromwel, in the late reign of King Henry the Eighth, and that not only in such general conferences, but in several convocations and synodical meetings. Not new, because the like had been frequently practiced by the most godly Kings and Emperors of the Primitive times; for in the Council of Chalcedon the Emperor appointed certain noblemen to sit as judges, whose names occur in the first action of that Council. The like we find exemplified in the Ephesine Council, in which, by the appointment of Theodosius and Valentinian, then Roman Emperors, Candidianus, a Count Imperial, sat as Judge or President, who in the managing of that trust over-acted anything which was done by Cromwel, as Vicar-General to that King, or Bacon was empowered to do as the Queen’s Commissioner. No such unreasonable condescension to be found in this as was pretended by the Bishops and the rest of that party, to save themselves from the guilt and censure of a tergiversation; for which and other their contempts we shall find them called to a reckoning within few months after. 20. In the Convocation which accompanied the present Parliament there was little done, and that little which they did was to little purpose.

Held under Bonner, in regard of the vacancy of the see of Canterbury, it began without the ordinary preamble of a Latin Sermon, all preaching being then prohibited by the Queen’s command. The Clergy for their Prolocutor made choice of Doctor Nicholas Harpsfield, Archdeacon of Canterbury, — a man of more ability (as his works declare) than he had any opportunity to make use of in the present service. The Act of the submission of the Clergy to King Henry the Eighth and his successors Kings of England, had been repealed in the first year of Queen Mary, so that the Clergy might have acted of their own authority, without any license from the Queen; and it is much to be admired that Bonner, White, or Watson did not put them to it; but such was either their fear or modesty, or a despair of doing any good to themselves and the cause, that there was nothing done by the Bishops at all, and not much more by the lower Clergy than a declaration of their judgment in some certain points which at that time were conceived fit to be commended to the sight of the Parliament: that is to say, “1. That in the sacrament of the altar, by virtue of Christ’s assisting, after the word is duly pronounced by the Priest, the natural body of Christ, conceived of the Virgin Mary, is really present under the species of bread and wine, as also his natural blood. 2. That after the consecration there remains not the substance of bread and wine, or any substance save the substance of God and man. 3. That the true body of Christ and his [true]. blood is offered for a propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and the dead. 4. That the supreme power of feeding and governing the militant Church of Christ, and of confirming their brethren, is given to Peter the Apostle, and to his lawful successors in the see Apostolic, as unto the vicars of Christ. 5. That the authority to handle and define such things which belong to faith, the sacraments, and discipline ecclesiastical, hath hitherto ever belonged, and only ought to belong, unto the pastors of the Church whom the Holy Spirit hath placed in the Church, and not unto laymen.”

These Articles they caused to be engrossed, and so commended them to the care and consideration of the higher house. By Bonner afterwards, that is to say on the third of March, presented to the hands of the Lord Keeper Bacon, by whom they were candidly received. But they prevailed no further with the Queen or the House of Peers when imparted to them, but that possibly they might help forward the disputation which not long after was appointed to be held at Westminster, as before was said. 21. It was upon the eighth of May that the parliament ended, and on the 24th of June that the public Liturgy was to be officiated in all the Churches of the kingdom. In the performance of which service the Bishops giving no encouragement, and many of the Clergy being backward in it, it was thought fit to put them to the final test, and either to bring them to conformity, or to bestow their places and preferments on more tractable persons. The Bishops at that time had been reduced into a narrower number than at any other time before. The sees of Salisbury and Oxon had been made vacant in the year 1557, by the death of Capon in the one, and of King in the other; neither of which Churches had since been filled, and that of Oxon not in ten years after. Purefew of Hereford, Holyman of Bristow, and Glyn of Bangor, died some few weeks before the Queen; Cardinal Pole of Canterbury on the same day with her; Hopton of Norwich, and Brooks of Glocester, within few weeks after. Griffin of Rochester departed this life about the beginning of the parliament; about which time also Pates of Worcester forsook the kingdom, and was followed by Goldwel of St Asaph in the end of May; so that there were no more than fifteen living of that sacred order. And they, being called in the beginning of July by certain of the Lords of the Council, commissionated thereunto in due form of law, were then and there required to take the oath of Supremacy, according to the law made in that behalf. Kitchin of Landaff only takes it, who, having formerly submitted unto every change, resolved to show himself no changeling in not conforming to the pleasure of the higher powers. By all the rest it was refused; that is to say by Dr Heath, Archbishop of York, Bonner of London, Tonstall of Durham, White of Winchester, Thirlby of Ely, Watson of Lincoln, Pool of Peterborough, Christopherson of Chichester, Bourn of Wells, Turbervile of Exeter, Morgan of St David’s, Bayne of Lichfield, Scot of Chester, and Oglethorp Bishop of Carlisle. And yet these men (which makes it seem the greater wonder) had either taken the like oath as Priests or Bishops in some part or other of the reign of the two last Kings. 22. But now they had hardened one another to a resolution of standing out unto the last, and were thereupon deprived of their several Bishoprics, as the law required — a punishment which came not on them all at once, some of them being borne withal (in hope of their conformity and submission) till the end of September. And when it came, it came accompanied with so much mercy that they had no reason to complain of the like extremity as they had put upon their brethren in the late Queen’s time. So well were they disposed of and accommodated with all things necessary, that they lived more at ease, and in as prosperous a condition, as when they were possessed of their former dignities. Archbishop Heath was suffered to abide in one of his own purchased houses, never restrained to any place, and died in great favor with the Queen, who bestowed many gracious visits on him during this retirement. Tonstall of Durham spent the remainder of his time with Archbishop Parker, by whom he was kindly entertained, and honorably buried. The like civility afforded also in the same house to Thirlby of Ely, and unto Bourn of Wells by the Dean of Exon, in which two houses they both died about ten years after.

White, though at first imprisoned for his hauts and insolencies, after some cooling of himself in the Tower of London, was suffered to enjoy his liberty, and to retire himself to what friend he pleased. Which favor was vouchsafed unto Turbervile also, who, being by birth a gentleman of an ancient family, could not want friends to give him honest entertainment. Watson, of Lincoln, having endured a short restraint, spent the remainder of his time with the Bishops of Rochester and Ely, till, being found practicing against the state, he was finally shut up in Wisbich castle, where at last he died. Oglethorp died soon after his deprivation, of an apoplexy, Bayne of the stone, and Morgan of some other disease in December following; but all of them in their beds, and in perfect liberty. Pool, by the clemency of the Queen, enjoyed the like freedom, courteously treated by all persons amongst whom he lived, and at last died upon one of his own farms in a good old age,. And as for Christopherson, he had been in his time so good a benefactor to Trinity College in Cambridge, whereof he had been sometimes Master, that he could not want some honest and ingenious retribution, if the necessity of his estate had required the same. Bonner alone was doomed to a constant imprisonment, which was done rather out of care for his preservation than as a punishment of his crimes; the prison proving to that wretch his safest sanctuary, whose horrid tyrannies had otherwise exposed him to the popular fury. So loud a lie is that of Genebrard, (though a good chronologer) that the Bishops were not. only punished with imprisonment and the loss of their livelihoods, but that many of them were destroyed by poison, famine, and many other kinds of death. 23. The Bishops being thus put to it, the oath is tendered next to the Deans and Dignitaries, and by degrees also to the rural Clergy; refused by some, and took by others, as it seemed most agreeable to their consciences or particular ends. For the refusal whereof, or otherwise not conforming to the public Liturgy, I find no more to have been deprived of their preferments, than fourteen Bishops, six Abbots, Priors, and Governors of religious Orders, twelve Deans, and as many Archdeacons, fifteen Presidents or Masters of Colleges, fifty Prebendaries of Cathedral Churches, and about eighty Parsons or Vicars; — the whole, number not amounting to 200 men, which, in a realm consisting of nine thousand parishes, and twenty-six Cathedral Churches, could be no great matter. But then we are to know withal that many who were cordially affected to the interess of the Church of Rome dispensed with themselves in these outward conformities, which some of them are said to do upon a hope of seeing the like revolution by the death of the Queen as had before happened by the death of King Edward; and otherwise that they might be able to relieve their brethren, who could not so readily frame themselves to present compliance. Which notwithstanding, so it was, that, partly by the deprivation of these few persons, but principally by the death of so many in the last year’s sickness, there was not a sufficient number of learned men to supply the cures; which filled the Church with an ignorant and illiterate Clergy, whose learning went no further than the Liturgy or the Book of Homilies, but otherwise conformable (which was no small felicity) to the rules of the Church. And on the other side, many were raised to great preferments, who, having spent their time of exile in such foreign Churches as followed the platform of Geneva, returned so disaffected to Episcopal Government, unto the rites and ceremonies here by law established, as not long after filled the Church with most sad disorders; not only to the breaking of the bond of peace, but to the grieving and extinguishing of the spirit of unity. Private opinions not regarded, nothing was more considered in them, than their zeal against Popery and their abilities in learning to confirm that zeal. On which account we find the, Queen’s Professor in Oxford to pass amongst the Nonconformists, though somewhat more moderate than the rest; and Cartwright, the Lady Margaret’s in Cambridge, to prove an unextinguished firebrand to the Church of England; Whittingham, the chief ringleader of the Franckfort schismatics, preferred unto the Deanery of Durham, from thence encouraging Knox and Goodman in setting up Presbytery and sedition in the Kirk of Scotland; Sampson advanced unto the Deanery of Christ Church, and within few years after turned out again for an incorrigible Nonconformist; Hardiman, one of the first twelve Prebendaries of the Church of Westminster, deprived soon after for throwing down the altar, and defacing the vestments of the Church. Which things I only touch at now, leaving the further prosecution of them to another place. 24. Of all these traverses the Pope received advertisement, from the first to the last. But, being of a rugged humor, he fell most infinitely short of that dexterity which the case required for finding out a fit expedient to prevent the rupture. When his first sullen fits had left him, he began to treat more seriously with the English Agent; not that the Queen should sue unto him for the Crown, which she was possessed of, but that no alteration of religion might be driven at by her. To which Karn answered according to such instructions as he had received, That he could give him no assurance in that point, unless the Pope would first declare, that the marriage of King Henry with Queen Anne Bollen had been good and lawful. Which cross request so stumbled both the Pope and the Conclave, that they made choice rather of doing nothing than to do that of which they could not promise to themselves any fortunate issue. Roused at the last by the continual alarms which came from England, he entertains some secret practices with the French, and on the sudden signifies his commands to Karn that he should not depart out of Rome without his leave, and that in the mean time he should take upon him the government of the English hospital in the city. In which command each of them is affirmed to have had his own proper ends: for Karn affected that restraint, which he was thought to have procured under hand because he had no mind to return into England, where he was like to find a different religion from that which he embraced in his own particular. And the Pope had his own ends also, in hindering, as he thought, the discovering of that secret intelligence which he maintained with the French King, to the Queen’s destruction, i£ his designs had took effect. But his design was carried with so little cunning that presently it discovered itself, without the help of a revelation from the English Agent. For — whether it were by his instigation, or by the solicitation of the French King, or the ambition of the Daulphin, who had then married the Queen of Scots, (as before was said) — the Queen of Scots assumes unto herself the style and title of the Queen of England, quartereth the arms thereof upon all her plate, and in all armories and escutcheons, as she had occasion. And this she did as cousin and next heir to the Queen deceased; which could not be without imputing bastardy to the Queen then living. A folly which occasioned such displeasure in the heart of Elizabeth, that it could neither be forgotten, nor so much as forgiven, till that unfortunate lady was driven out of her kingdom, hunted into a close imprisonment., and finally brought out to the fatal block. 25. This, as it somewhat startled the new Queen of England, so it engaged her the more resolutely in that Reformation which was so happily begun.

And to that end she sets out, by advice of her Council, a certain body of Injunctions, the same in purpose and effect with those which had been published in the first of King Edward, but more accommodated to the temper of the present time. Nothing more singular in the-same than the severe course taken about ministers’ marriages, the use of singing, and the reverences in divine worship to be kept in Church, the posture of the Communion table, and the form of bidding prayers in the congregation.

This last almost the same verbatim with that which is prescribed, Can. 55, anno 1603, and therefore not so necessary to be here repeated. The first worn long since out of use, and not much observed neither when it first came out; as if it had been published in the way of caution, to make the clergymen more wary in the choice of their wives, than with a purpose of pursuing it to an execution. But as for that concerning the use of singing, and the accustomed reverences to be kept in churches, they are these that follow. — Touching the last it is enjoined, “That whensoever the name of Jesus should be in any lesson, sermon, or otherwise, in the Church pronounced, that due reverence be made of all persons, young and old, with lowliness of courtesy, and uncovering of the heads of the men kind, as thereunto did necessarily belong, and heretofore hath been accustomed.”

For the encouragement of the art, and the continuance of the use of singing in the Church of England, it was thus enjoined, that is to say, “That because in divers Collegiate, as also in some Parish-churches, heretofore there hath been livings appointed for the maintenance of men and children for singing in the Church, by means whereof, the laudable exercise of Music hath been had in estimation, and preserved in knowledge; the Queen’s Majesty, neither meaning in any wise the decay of anything that might conveniently tend to the use and continuance of the said science, neither to have the same so abused in any part of the Church, that thereby the Common Prayer should be the worse understood by the hearers, willeth and commandeth, that first no alterations be made of such assignments of livings as heretofore hath been appointed to the use of singing or music in the Church, but that the same so remain: and that there be a modest and distinct song so used in all parts of the Common Prayers in the Church, that the same may be as plainly understood as if it were read without singing. And yet nevertheless, for the comforting of such as delight in music, it may be permitted, that in the beginning or in the end of Common Prayer, either at morning or evening, there may be sung an hymn or such like song to the praise of Almighty God, in the best melody and music that may be conveniently devised, having respect that the sentence of the hymn may be understood and perceived.” According to which order, as plain song was retained in most Parish-churches for the daily Psalms, so in her own Chapels, and in the quire of all Cathedrals and some Colleges, the hymns were sung after a more melodious manner, with organs commonly, and sometimes with other musical instruments, as the solemnity required.

No mention here of singing David’s Psalms in meter, though afterwards they first thrust out the hymns which are herein mentioned, and by degrees also did they the Te Deum, the Magnificat, and the Nunc Dimittis. 26. Concerning the position of the holy table it was ordered thus, viz. “That no altar should be taken down, but by oversight of the curate of the Church, or the church-wardens, or one of them at the least, wherein no riotous or disordered manner was to be used; and that the holy table in every Church be decently made, and set in the place where the altar stood, and there commonly covered as thereto belongeth, and as should be appointed by the visitors, and so to stand, saving when the Communion of the Sacrament is to be administered; at which tithe the same shall be so placed in good sort within the quire or chancel, as whereby the minister may be more conveniently heard of the communicants in his prayer and ministration, and the communicants also more conveniently and in more number communicate with the said minister. And after the Communion done, from time to time, the said holy table to be placed where it stood before.” Which permission of removing the table at Communion times, “is not so to be understood,” (as the most excellent King Charles declared in the case of St Gregory’s) “as if it were ever left to the discretion of the parish, much less to the particular fancy of any humorous person; but to the judgment of the ordinary, to whose place and function it doth properly belong to give direction in that point, both for the thing itself, or for the time when, and how long, as he may find cause.” 27. By these Injunctions she made way to her visitation, executed by commissioners in their several circuits, and regulated by a book of articles printed and published for that purpose. Proceeding by which articles, the commissioners removed all carved images out of the Church which had been formerly abused to superstition, defacing also all such pictures, paintings, and other monuments as served for the setting forth of feigned miracles; and this they did without any tumult and disorder, and without laying any sacrilegious and ravenous hands on any of the Church’s plate, or other utensils which had been repaired and re-provided in the late Queen’s time. They inquired also into the life and doctrine of ministers, their diligence in attending their several cures, the decency of their apparel, the respect of the parishioners towards them, the reverent behavior of all manner of persons in God’s public worship. Inquiry was also made into all sorts of crimes, — haunting of taverns by the clergy, adultery, fornication, drunkenness, amongst those of the laity, with many other things since practiced in the visitations of particular Bishops; by means whereof the Church was settled and confirmed in so good an order, that the work was made more easy to the Bishops, when they came to govern, than otherwise it would have been. But more particularly in London (which for the most part gives example to the rest of the kingdom) the visitors were Sir Richard Sackvile, (father to Thomas Earl of Dorset) Mr Robert Horn, after Bishop of Winchester, Dr Huick, a civilian, and one Salvage, possibly a common lawyer; who, calling before them divers persons of every parish, gave them an oath to inquire and present upon such articles and injunctions as were given unto them. In pursuance whereof both the commissioners and the people showed so much forwardness, that on St Bartholomew’s day and the morrow after they burned in St Paul’s church-yard, Cheapside, and other places of the city, all the roods and other images which had been taken out of the Churches. And as it is many times supposed that a thing is never well done if not over done, so happened it in this ease also; zeal against superstition had prevailed so far with some ignorant men, that in some places the copes, vestments, altar-cloths, books, banners, sepulchres, and rood-lofts, were burned altogether. 28. All matters of the Church being thus disposed of, it will be time to cast our eyes on the concernments of the civil state which occurred this year; in which I find nothing more considerable than the overtures of some marriages which had been made unto the Queen. Philip of Spain had made an offer of himself by the Count of Feria, his Ambassador; but the Queen had heard so much of the disturbances which befell King Henry by marrying with his brother’s wife, that she had no desire to run into the like perplexities by marrying with her sister’s husband; and how he was discouraged from proceeding in it, hath been showed already. Towards the end of the Parliament, the Lords and Commons made an humble address unto her, in which they most earnestly besought her, that, for securing the peace of the kingdom and the contention of all her good and loving subjects, she would think of marrying; not pointing her particularly unto any one man, but leaving her to please herself in the choice of the person. To which she answered, “That she thanked them for their good affections, and took their application to her to be well intended, — the rather, because it contained no limitation of place or person; which had they done, she must have disliked it very much, and thought it to have been a great presumption.” But for the matter of their suit, she lets them know, “That she had long since made choice of that state of life in which now she lived, and hoped that God would give her strength and constancy to go through with it; that if she had been minded to have changed that course, she neither wanted many invitations to it in the reign of her brother, nor many strong impulsions in the time of her sister. That as she had hitherto remained, so she intended to continue by the grace of God, though her words, compared with her youth, might be thought by some to be far different from her meaning.” And so having thanked them over again, she licensed them to depart to their several businesses. And it appeared soon after that she was in earnest, by her rejecting a motion made by Gustavus King of Sweden for the Prince Ericus; for the soliciting whereof his second son John, Duke of Finland (who succeeded his brother in that kingdom) is sent Embassador into England about the end of September. Received at Harwich in Essex by the Earl of Oxford and the Lord Robert Dudley, with a goodly train of gentlemen and yeomen, he was by them conducted honorably towards London, where he was met by the Lords and gentlemen of the Court, attended through the city on the 5th of October to the Bishop of Winchester’s house in Southwark. There he remained with his train, consisting of about fifty persons, till the Easter following; magnificently feasted by the Queen, but otherwise no farther gratified in the business which he came about than all the rest who both before and after tried their fortunes in it. 29. The next great business of this year was a renewing of the peace with the Crown of France, agreed on at thee treaty near the city of Cambray; in which all differences were concluded also between France and Spain. All other articles being accorded, the restitution of Calais to the Queen of England seemed the only obstacle by which the general peace of Christendom was at the point to have been hindered. But the Queen, either preferring the public good before private interest, or fearing to be left alone if she should stand too obstinately upon that particular, came at the last to this agreement, viz. That Calais should remain for the term of eight years then next following in the hands of the French; that at the end of the said term it should be delivered unto the English, or otherwise the French King should pay unto the Queen the sum of 500,000 crowns. According unto which agreement peace was proclaimed in London on the 7th of April, between the Queen’s Majesty on the one part, and the French King on the other; as also between her and the King Daulphin, with his wife the Queen of Scots, and all the subjects and dominions of the said four Princes; the proclamation published by Garter and Norroy Kings at Arms, accompanied by three other heralds and five trumpeters, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen in their scarlet gowns being present on horseback. But long the French King lived not to enjoy the benefit of this general peace; — unfortunately wounded in Paris at a tilt or tournament by Count Montgomery; of which wound he shortly after died, on the 10th of July, leaving behind him four sons, Francis, Charles, Henry, and another Francis, of which the three first, according to their seniority, enjoyed that kingdom. And though she had just cause to be offended with the young King Francis, for causing the Queen of Scots, his wife, to take upon herself the title and arms of England, yet she resolved to bestow a royal obsequy on the King deceased; which was performed in St Paul’s Church on the 8th and 9th of September, in most solemn manner, with a rich hearse made like an imperial crown, sustained with eight pillars, and covered with black velvet, with a valance fringed with gold, and richly hanged with escutcheons, pennons, and banners of the French King’s arms. The principal mourner for the first day was the Lord Treasurer Paulet, Marquess of Winchester, assisted with ten other Lords mourners, with all the heralds in black, and their coat-armors uppermost. The divine offices performed by Doctor Matthew Parker, Lord Elect of Canterbury, Doctor William Barlow, Lord Elect of Chichester, and Doctor John Scory, Lord Elect of Hereford, all sitting in the throne of the Bishop of London,. no otherwise at that time than in hoods and surplices: by whom the Dirige was executed at that time in the English tongue; the funeral sermon preached the next morning by the Lord of Hereford, and a Communion celebrated by the Bishops, then attired in copes upon their surplices. At which time six of the chief mourners received the Sacrament, and so departed with the rest to the Bishop’s Palace, where a very liberal entertainment was provided for them. By which magnificency and the like this prudent Queen not only kept her own reputation at the highest amongst foreign Princes, but caused the greater estimation to be had by the Catholic party of the religion here established.

ANNO REGNI ELIZ. 2, ANNO DOM. 1559, 1560. 1. We must begin this year with the consecration of such new Bishops as were elected to succeed in the place of those which had been deprived; the first of which was that of the Most Reverend Doctor Matthew Parker, elected to the See of Canterbury on the first of August, but not consecrated till the 17th of December following. That dignity had first been offered, as is said by some, to Doctor Nicholas Wotton, Dean of Canterbury and York, who, grown in years, and still a well-wilier to the Pope, desired to be excused from undertaking of a charge so weighty. And some say it was offered unto Whitehead also, who had been Chaplain to Anne Bollen, the Queen’s mother; but he returned the like refusal, though on other grounds, — as more inclined (by reason of his long abode in Calvin’s Churches) to the presbyterian than the Episcopal form of government: and it was happy, for the Church might have been betrayed by his disaffection, — that he did refuse it; the emir being better filled by Parker, another of Queen Anne Bollen’s Chaplains, but better principled, and of a far more solid judgment in affairs of moment. The Conge d’eslire which opened him the way to this eminent dignity bears date on the 18th day of July, within few days after the deprivation of the former Bishops, — to satisfy the world in the Queen’s intention of preserving the episcopal government. And therefore why the Consecration was deferred so long may be made a question. Some think it was that she might satisfy herself by putting the Church into a posture by her visitation before she passed it over to the care of the Bishops; others conceive that she was so enamoured with the power and title of Supreme Governess that she could not deny herself that contentment in the exercise of it which the present interval afforded; for what are titles without power? and what. pleasure can be took in power if no use be made of it? 2. And it is possible enough that both or either of these considerations might have some influence upon her. But the: main cause for keeping the episcopal sees in so long a vacancy must be found elsewhere. An Act had passed in the late Parliament, which never had the confidence to appear in print, in the preamble whereof it was declared, That, by dissolution of religious houses in the time of the late King, her Majesty’s father, many impropriations, tithes, and portions of tithes had been invested in the Crown, which the Queen, being a lady of a tender conscience, thought not fit to hold, nor could conveniently dismember from it without compensation, in regard of the present low condition in which she found the Crown at her coming to it: and thereupon it was enacted, that in the vacancy of any Archbishoprick or Bishopric it should be lawful for the Queen to issue out a Commission under the Great Seal for taking a survey of all castles, manors, lands, tenements, and all other hereditaments to the said episcopal sees belonging or appertaining; and on the return of such surveys, to take into her hands any of the said castles, manors, lands, tenements, etc., as to her seemed good; giving to the said Archbishops or Bishops as much annual rents, to be raised upon impropriations, tithes and portions of tithes, as the said castles, manors, lands, etc., did amount unto.

The Church-lands certified according to the ancient rents, without consideration of the casualties and other perquisites of court which belonged unto them; the retribution made in pensions, tithes, and portions of tithes, extended at the utmost value, from which no other profit was to be expected than the rent itself. Which Act not being to take effect till the end of that Parliament, the interval between the end of the Parliament, the deprivation of the old Bishops, and the consecration of the new, was to be taken up in the executing of such surveys, and making such advantages of them, as most redounded to the profit of the Queen and her courtiers.

Upon which ground, as all the Bishops’ sees were so long kept vacant before any one of them was filled, so in the following times they were kept void one after another as occasion served, till the best flowers in the whole garden of the Church had been culled out of it. There was another clause in the said statute, by which the patrimony of the Church was as much dilapidated sede plena as it was pulled by this in the times of vacancy; for by that clause all Bishops were restrained from making any grants of their farms and manors for more than twenty-one years, or three lives at the most, except it were unto the Queen, her heirs and successors. But either to the Queen, or to any of her heirs and successors (and under that pretense to any her hungry courtiers), they might be granted in fee-farm, or for a lease of four-score and nineteen years, as it pleased the parties. By which means, Credinton was dismembered from the see of Exon, the goodly manor of Sherborn from that of Salisbury, many fair manors alienated for ever from the rich sees of Winchester, Ely, and indeed what not? 3. But to proceed unto the Consecration of the new Archbishop — the first thing to be done, after the passing of the Royal Assent for ratifying of the election of the Dean and Chapter, was the confirming of it in the Court of the Arches, according to the usual form in that behalf. Which being accordingly performed, the Vicar General, the Dean of the Arches, the Proctors and Officers of the Court, whose presence was required at this solemnity, were entertained at a dinner provided for them at the Nag’shead Tavern in Cheapside; for which, though Parker paid the shot, yet shall the Church be called to an after reckoning. Nothing remains to expedite the Consecration but the Royal Mandate, which I find dated on the sixth of December, directed to Anthony Kitching, Bishop of Landaff; William Barlow, late Bishop of Bath and Wells, Lord Elect of Chichester; John Scory, late Bishop of Chichester, Lord Elect of Hereford; Miles Coverdale, late Bishop of Exeter; John Hodgskins, Suffragan of Bedford; John, Suffragan of Thetford; and John Bale, Bishop of Osserie in the realm of Ireland: — requiring them, or any four of them at the least, to proceed unto the Consecration of the Right Reverend Matthew Parker, lately elected to the Metropolitical See of Canterbury. The first and the two last, either hindered by sickness or by some other lawful impediment, were not in a condition to attend the service; which notwithstanding was performed by the other four on Sunday the seventeenth of that month, according to the Ordinal of King Edward the Sixth, then newly printed for that purpose.

The ceremony performed in the Chapel at Lambeth House, the east end whereof was hanged with rich tapestry, and the floor covered with red cloth; the morning service read by Pearson, the Archbishop’s chaplain, the sermon preached by Doctor Scory, Lord Elect of Hereford, on those words of St Peter, “The elders which are among you I exhort,” etc. ( <600501> Peter 5:1); the Letters Patents for proceeding to the Consecration publicly read by Doctor Yale, the act of Consecration legally performed by the imposition of the hands of the said four Bishops, according to the ancient Canons and King Edward’s Ordinal; and after all, a plentiful dinner for the entertainment of the company which resorted thither: amongst whom, Charles Howard, eldest son of William Lord Effingham, created afterwards Lord Admiral and Earl of Nottingham, happened to be one, and after testified to the truth of all these particulars, when the reality and form of this consecration was called in question by some captious sticklers for the Church of Rome. 4. For so it was, that some sticklers for the Church of Rome, having been told of the dinner which was made at the Nag’s-head Tavern at such time as the election of the new Archbishop was confirmed in the Arches, raised a report that the Nag’s-head Tavern was the place of the consecration. And this report was countenanced by another slander, causing it to be noised abroad and published in some seditious pamphlets, that the persons designed by the Queen for the several Bishoprics, being met at a tavern, did then and there lay hands upon one another, without form or order. The first calumny fathered on one Neale, once Hebrew Reader in the University of Oxford, and Chaplain unto Bishop Bonner; which last relation were sufficient to discredit the whole tale, if there were no other evidence to disprove the same. And yet the silence of all Popish writers concerning this Nag’s-head con-secretion during the whole reign of Queen Elizabeth, when it had been most material for them to insist upon it, as much discrediteth the whole figment as the author of it. The other published by Dr Nicholas Sanders, (never more truly Dr Slanders than in that particular), in his pestilent and seditious book entitled “De Schismate Anglicano;” whose frequent falsehoods make him no fit author to be built upon in any matter of importance. Yet on the credit of these two, but on the first especially, the tale of the Nag’s-head consecration, being once taken up, was generally exposed to sale as one of the most vendible commodities in the writings of some Romish Priests and Jesuits, as Champneys, Fitzsimons, Parson, Kellison, etc. They knew right well that nothing did more justify the Church of England in the eye of the world than that it did preserve a succession of Bishops, and consequently of all other sacred orders, in the ministration. Without which, as they would not grant it to be a Church, so could they prove it to be none by no stronger argument than that the Bishops, (or the pretended Bishops rather, in their opinion) were either. not consecrated at all, or not canonically consecrated as they ought to be. And for the gaining of this point, they stood most pertinaciously on the fiction of the Nag’s-head Tavern, which if it could be proved, or at least believed, there was an end of the episcopal succession in the Church of England, and consequently also of the Church itself. 5. For the decrying of this clamor, and satisfying all opponents in the truth of the matter, it was thought fit by Dr George Abbot, then Archbishop of Canterbury, to call before him some of the Priests and Jesuits, that is to say, Fairecloth, Leake, Laithwait, and Coilington, being then prisoners in the Clink. Who being brought to Lambeth on the 12th of May, 1613, were suffered in the presence of divers Bishops to peruse the public registers, and thereby to satisfy themselves in all particulars concerning the confirmation and consecration of Archbishop Parker, according to the circumstances and punctilios before laid down. This stilled the clamor for the present, though it brake out again forty years after, and was again stilled by the care and industry of the Right Reverend Dr Bramhal, Lord Bishop of Derry, in a book entitled, “The Church of England defended against some scandalous and fabulous imputations cast upon her, etc.” Which cavil (for is no better) being thus refelled, the other objections of the adversaries will be easily answered. Though Barlow and Scory were deprived of their episcopal sees, yet, first, the justice and legality of their deprivation was not clear in law; and secondly, they neither were nor could be deprived of their episcopal character, which remained in them underaced, as before it was. And whilst the character remained, they were in a capacity of performing all episcopal offices to which they should be called by their Metropolitan, or any higher power directing and commanding in all such matters as concerned the Church. And as for Suffragans, by which title Hodgskins is commissionated for the consecration, they were no other than the Chore-Episcopi of the primitive times,-subsidiary Bishops, ordained for easing the Diocesan of some part of his burden; by means whereof they were enabled to perform such offices belonging to that sacred function, not limited to time and place by the ancient Canons, by which a Bishop was restrained in some certain acts of jurisdiction to his proper diocese. Of this sort there were twenty-six in the realm of England, distinguished by the names of such principal towns as were appointed for their title and denomination. The names and number whereof, together with the jurisdiction and preheminences proportioned to them, the reader may peruse in the Act of Parliament made in the 26th year of King Henry the Eighth. 6. No sooner was this solemnity ended, but a new mandate comes for the confirmation of Dr Barlow in the See of Chichester, and Dr Scory to the See of Hereford, to which they had been severally elected in August last. And though the not restoring of them to their former Sees might seem to justify the late Queen Mary in their deprivation, yet the Queen wanted not good reasons for their present removal; not that she did consult therein her own power and profit, (as is thought by some) but studied rather their content and satisfaction than her own concernments. For Barlow, having wasted the revenue of the Church of Wells, could not with any comfort behold a place which he had so spoiled; and Story, having been deprived of the See of Chichester under pretense of wanting a just title to it, desired not to be put upon the hazard of a second ejection. But as for Coverdale, he did not only waive the acceptation of Exon, but of any other Church then vacant. He was now seventy-two years old, and desired rather to enjoy the pleasure of a private life than be disquieted in his old age with the cares of government. And somewhat might be also in it of a disaffection, not to the calling but the habit; which is to be believed the rather, because he attended not at the Consecration in his cope and rochet, as the others did, but in a plain black coat reaching down to his ankles. And now the rest of the Episcopal Sees begin to fill; for on the 21st of the same December, Dr Edmond Grindall was consecrated to the See of London, Dr Richard Cox to that of Ely, Dr Edwin Sandys to the Church of Worcester, Dr Rowland Merick unto that of Bangor. On the 21st of January then next following, Dr Nicholas Bullingham was by the like consecration made Bishop of Lincoln, the right learned Mr John Jewel, (who afterwards accepted the degree of Doctor), Bishop of Sarisbury, Dr Thomas Young, Bishop of St David’s, and Mr Richard Davis, Bishop of St Asaph. The 24th of March was honored with the consecration of three other Bishops; that is to say, of Mr Thomas Bentham to the See of Coventry and Lichfield, of Mr Gilbert Barclay to the See of Wells, and of Dr Edmond Guest to that of Rochester. On the 14th of July comes the consecration of Dr William Alley to the Church of Exon; and that of Mr John Parkhurst to the Church of Norwich, on the first of September. By which account we find no fewer than sixteen Sees to be filled with new Bishops within the compass of the year, — men of ability in matter of learning, and such as had a good report for the integrity of their lives and conversations. Nor was it long before the rest of the Episcopal Sees were supplied with new pastors, as shall be shown hereafter in due time and place. The Queen’s Commission of Survey had not crossed the Trent, which possibly may be the reason why we find no new Bishops in the province of York; and Winchester must afford one Michaelmas rent more to the Queen’s Exchequer, before the Lord Treasurer could give way to a new incumbent. 7. And now we may behold the face of the Church of England, as it was first settled and established under Queen Elizabeth. The government of the Church by Archbishops and Bishops, according to the practice of the best and happiest times of Christianity. These Bishops nominated and elected according to the statute in the 25 th of King Henry the Eighth, and consecrated by the Ordinal confirmed by Parliament in the fifth and sixth years of King Edward the Sixth; never appearing publicly but in their rochets, nor officiating otherwise than in copes at the holy altar. The Priests not stirring out of doors but in their square caps, gowns, or canonical coats; nor executing any divine office but in their surplice, — a vestment set apart for religious services in the primitive times, as may be gathered from St Chrysostome for the Eastern Churches, and from St Hierom for the Western. The doctrine of the Church reduced unto its ancient purity, according to the Articles agreed upon in Convocation, anno 1552. The Liturgy conform to the primitive patterns, and all the rites and ceremonies therein prescribed, accommodated to the honor of God and increase of piety. The festivals preserved in their former dignity, observed with their distinct offices peculiar to them, and celebrated with a religious con course of all sorts of people; the weekly fasts, the holy time of Lent, the Embring weeks, together with the fast of the Rogation, severely kept by a forbearance of all kind of flesh; not now by virtue of the Statute, as in the time of King Edward, but as appointed by the Church in her public Calendar before the Book of Common Prayer. The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper celebrated in most reverend manner, the holy table seated in the place of the Altar, the people making their due reverence at their first entrance into the Church, kneeling at the Communion, the Confession, and the public prayers, standing up at the Creed, the Gospels, and the Gloria Patri, and using the accustomed reverence at the name of Jesus. Music retained in all such Churches in which provision had been made for the maintenance of if., or where the people could be trained up at the least to plain song. All which particulars were either established by the laws, or commanded by the Queen’s Injunctions, or otherwise retained by virtue of some ancient usages not by law prohibited. Nor is it much to be admired that such a general conformity to those ancient usages was constantly observed in all Cathedral and the most part of the parishchurches, considering how well they were precedented by the Court itself, in which the Liturgy was officiated every day both morning and evening, not only in the public Chapel, but the private closet; celebrated in the Chapel with organs and other musical instruments, and the most excellent voices, both of men and children, that could be got in all the kingdom. The gentlemen and children in their surplices, and the Priests in copes as oft as they attended the divine service at the holy altar. The altar furnished with rich plate, two fair gilt candlesticks with tapers in them, and a massy crucifix of silver in the midst thereof. Which last remained there for some years, till it was broke in pieces by Pach the fool, (no wiser man daring to undertake such a desperate service), at the solicitation of Sir Francis Knolles, the Queen’s near kinsman by the Caries, and one who openly appeared in favor of the schism at Frankfort. The ancient ceremonies accustomably observed by the Knights of the Garter in their adoration toward the altar, abolished by King Edward the Sixth, and revived by Queen Mary, were by this Queen retained as formerly in her father’s time; which made that order so esteemed amongst foreign Princes, that the Emperors Maximillian and Rodolphus, the French Kings Charles the Ninth and Henry the Third, together with Francis Duke of Mout Morency, though of a contrary religion to her, (not to say anything of divers Lutheran Kings and Princes) did thankfully accept of their elections into that society. The solemn sermons upon each Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday in the time of Lent preached by the choicest of the Clergy, she devoutly heard, attired in black, according to the commendable custom of her predecessors; in which if anything escaped them contrary to the doctrine and approved rites and ceremonies of the Church of England, they were sure to hear of it; for which she received both thanks and honor from her very enemies, as appears by Dr Harding’s Epistle Dedicatory before his Answer to the Apology writ by Bishop Jewel. Particularly when one of her chaplains (Mr Alexander Nowell, Dean of St Paul’s) had spoken less reverently in a sermon- preached before her of the sign of the cross, she called aloud to him from her closet window, commanding him to retire from that ungodly digression, and to return unto his text. And on the other side, when one of her divines had preached a sermon in defense of the Real Presence, on the day commonly called Good Friday, anno 1565, she openly gave him thanks for his pains and piety. The Bishops and the Clergy had been but ill proficients in the school of conformity under so excellent a mistress, if they had not kept the Church in the highest splendor, to which they were invited by that great example. And in this glorious posture still had lasted longer, had not her order been confounded and her peace disturbed by some factious spirits; who, having had their wills at Frankfort, or otherwise ruling the Presbytery when they were at Geneva, thought to have carried all before them with the like facility when they were in England. 8. But leaving them and their designs to some other time, we must next look upon the aid which the Queen sent to those of the reformed religion in the realm of Scotland, but carried under the pretense of dislodging such French forces as were garrisoned there, and might have proved bad neighbors to the kingdom of England. Such of the Scots as desired a reformation of religion, taking advantage by the Queen’s absence, the easiness of the Earl of Arran, and want of power in the Queen Regent to suppress their practices, had put themselves into a body; headed by some of the nobility, they take unto themselves the name of The Congregation, managing their own affairs apart from the rest of the kingdom, and, in assurance of their own strength, petition to the Queen Regent and the Lords of the Council, that the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper might be administered in both kinds, that divine offices might be celebrated in the vulgar tongue, and that they might have the choice of their own Ministers, according to the practice (as it was pretended) of the primitive times. The answer hereunto was fair and gracious, but rather for the gaining of time than with a purpose to grant any of the points demanded. The principal leaders of the party, well followed by the common people, put themselves into Perth, and there begin to stand on higher terms than before they did. The news whereof occasioneth Knox to leave his sanctuary in Geneva, and join himself unto the Lords of the Congregation; at Perth he goes into the pulpit, and falls so bitterly on images, idolatry, and other superstitions of the Church of Rome, that the people in a popular fury deface all the images in that Church, and presently demolish all religious houses within that city. This happened about the end of May, anno 1559, and gave a dangerous example to them of Couper, who forthwith, on the hearing of it, destroyed all the images, and pulled down the altars in that Church also. Preaching at Craile he inveighed sharply against the Queen Regent, and vehemently stirred up the people to join together for the expulsion of the French; which drew after it the like destruction of all altars and images as was made before at Perth and Couper. The like followed on his preaching at St Andrew’s also, the religious houses being pulled down as well as the images, and laid so flat, that there was nothing left in the form of a building. Inflamed by the same firebrand, they burned down the rich monastery of Scone, and ruined that of Cambuskenneth, demolished all the altars, images, and. covents of religious persons in Sterling, Lithgow, Glascough, Edenburgh, make themselves masters of the last, and put up their own preachers into all the pulpits of that city, not suffering the Queen Regent to have the use of one Church only for her own devotions. 9. Nor staid they there, but, being carried on by the same ill spirit, they pass an Act among themselves for depriving the Queen Regent of all place and power in the public government; concerning which the oracle, being first consulted, returned this answer — sufficiently ambiguous, as all oracles are, — that is to say, that “the iniquity of the Queen Regent ought not to withdraw their hearts from the obedience due to their Sovereign, nor did he wish any such sentence to be pronounced-against her, but when she should change her course, and submit herself to good counsel, there should be place left unto her of regress to the same honors, from which, for good causes, she ought to be deprived.” This Act is intimated to the Queen Regent, who now begins as seriously to provide for her own preservation, as she had done before in maintenance of the Queen’s authority. Some forces had been sent from France, together with many arms and ammunition in proportion to them; but these not being great enough to suppress those insolencies, she is supplied at times with 3000 foot, beside Octavian’s regiment sent over to make way for the rest. Some horse were also shipped from France, but so scattered and dispersed by tempest, that few of them came safely thither. Yet by the terror of their coming, and the noise of more, she recovereth Edenburgh, compelleth the confederate Scots to go further north, fortifies Lieth, the port-town to Edenburgh and the chief key of all that kingdom, — garrisoned forthwith by the French, not only to make good their entrance, but second their exit. On these discouragements, many of the Scots soldiers drop away, and the rest refuse to stand unto their arms without present pay. Had the French gone to work like soldiers, and poured such forces into that kingdom as the condition of affairs did require at their hands, they might easily have suppressed that scattered faction, before they were united under the protection of a foreign power; but this doing of their work by halves proved the undoing of the whole, and only served to give the Scots sufficient time to renew their forces, and call the English to their aid. They had all along maintained a correspondence with some in England, but more particularly with Crofts, Governor of the town of Barwick. To him they send for a supply in this great necessity; by whom their agents are dispatched with four thousand crowns; but the Queen Regent was so seasonably advertised of it, that she intercepted on the way both the men and the money. 10. In this extremity they take counsel of despair with Knox, by whom they are advised to cast themselves into the arms of the Queen of England, the only visible means then left to support the cause; to whom the neighborhood of the French, upon just jealousies and reasons of State, was not very acceptable. No better counsel being offered (as indeed none could) Maitland and Melvin are dispatched to the Court of England; by whom the Queen is made acquainted with the state of that kingdom, the difficulty under which it struggled, the danger like to fall on her own dominions if the French should grow too strong in Scotland; and thereupon entreat her succors and assistance for the expulsion of that people, who otherwise might to both realms prove alike destructive. The business being taken into consideration, it was conceived by some of the Council, that the Queen ought not to give ear unto their desires; that it was a matter of dangerous consequence, and of ill example, to assist the subjects of that or any other kingdom against their own natural and lawful Princes; and that she did not know how soon it might be her own ease, to have the like troubles and commotions raised against her by those who liked not her proceedings in the change of religion. By others it was thought a matter of no small impiety not to assist their brethren of the same profession, imploring their assistance in the present exigency; that it was a work of charity to defend their neighbors from the oppression of strangers; that the French were always enemies to the Crown of England, and therefore that it could not be consistent with the rules of prudence to suffer them to grow too strong upon their borders; that the French King had already assumed the title of England, and it concerned them to take care that they gave him not by their improvidence the possession also. These reasons carried it for the Scots, and so they are dismissed with promise of such present aid, and on such conditions, as should be agreed on by Commissioners on both sides in the town of Barwick. 11. About the middle of February the Commissioners meet, — the Duke of Norfolk for the Queen, the Lord James Stewart (one of the bastard brothers of the Queen of Scots), the Lord Ruthven, and some other principal men of the Congregation in the name of the rest: by whom it was con-eluded on the 27th of that month, that the Queen should sendsufficient forces into Scotland, both by sea and land, furnished with money, arms, and ammunition; that she should not recall her forces till that kingdom was cleared of all the French; that provision of victuals for the army should be made by the Scots, and that the Scots should show themselves enemies to all such as were enemies to the Crown of England, whether Scots or French; but by all means, that nothing should be done by virtue of this agreement, which might import the least withdrawing of the Scots from that loyalty, duty, and obedience which was due unto their natural Queen, or the King her husband. By which agreement with the Scots, the Queen abundantly provided for her own security from all invasions on that side; and by affording them such succors as their wants required, but chiefly by conferring some small annual pensions on the chiefs among them, she made herself more absolute on that side of the Tweed than either the Queen of Scots herself, or King James her son, or any of their predecessors in all times before. According to these capitulations, an army gallantly appointed is sent into Scotland, consisting of 6000 foot and 2000 horse, and commanded by the Lord Gray, a right expert soldier, accompanied by some lords and gentlemen of eminent quality; some ships were also sent to block up the haven, and hinder all relief which might come by sea to the town of Lieth, on the defense whereof depended the whole hopes of the French, together with the interest of that Crown in the realm of Scotland. 12. It was about the beginning of April that the English army came before it; recruited afterwards by the coming of 2000 more; which fresh supply, together with some ill success which they found in the action, did so disseminate the besieged, that they conceived no possibility of a long resistance. Embassadors are therefore sent from France to Edenborough, there to confer with such of the same quality as should also come thither, authorized by the Queen of England: by whom it was in fine concluded, That all the French forces should forthwith depart out of Scotland, except sixty only to be left in Dunbar, and as many in the Fort of Inchkeith; that they should be transported for their greater safety in English bottoms; that. all matters of religion should be referred to the following Parliament; that an act of oblivion should be passed for the indemnity of all who had borne arms on either side; that a general bond of love and amity should be made betwixt the Lords and their adherents of both religions; and finally, amongst many other particulars, that neither the Queen of Scots nor the French King should from thenceforth assume the titles and arms of England. Which articles being signed and confirmed for both kingdoms, the French about the middle of July take their leave of Scotland, and the English army at the same tithe set forward for Barwick, being there disbanded and dismissed to their several dwellings. Followed not long after by the Earls of Morton and Glencarn, in the name of the rest of the Congregation, sent purposely to render to the Queen their most humble thanks for her speedy and prosperous assistance, and to desire the continuance of her Majesty’s favors, if the French should any more attempt to invade their country. Assured whereof, and being liberally rewarded with gifts and presents, they returned with joy and glad tidings to the Congregation; whom as the Queen had put upon a present confidence of going vigorously on in their Reformation, so it concerned them to proceed so carefully in pursuance of it, as might comply with the dependence which they had upon her. 13. First therefore, that she might more cordially espouse their quarrel, they bound themselves by their subscription to embrace the Liturgy, with all the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England, which for a time remained the only form of worship for the Kirk of Scoff and; when, and by whose means they receded from. it, may be shown hereafter. In the. next place they cause a Parliament to be called in the month of August, according to the Articles of the Pacification, from which no person was excluded, who either had the right of suffrage in his own capacity, or in relation to their Churches, or as returned from their Shrevalties or particular Boroughs: of which last, there appeared the accustomed number; but of the Lords Spiritual, no more than six Bishops of thirteen, with thirteen Abbots and Priors, or thereabouts; and of the temporal Lords, to the number of ten Earls and as many Barons. By whose authority and consent they passed three acts, conducing wholly to the advantage of the Reformation: the first whereof was for abolishing the Pope’s jurisdiction and authority within the realm; the second, for annulling all statutes made in former times for maintenance of idolatry and superstition; and the third, for the punishment of the sayers and hearers of the mass. To this Parliament also some of the Ministers presented “A Confession of the Faith and Doctrine to be believed and professed by the Protestants of the Kirk of Scotland;” modeled in many places by the principles of Calvin’s doctrine, which Knox had brought with him from - Geneva; but being put unto the vote, it was opposed by no more than three of the temporal Lords, that is to say, the Earl of Athol, and the Lords Somervil and Borthwick, who gave no other reason for it, but that “they would believe as their fathers did.”

The Popish prelates were silent in it, neither assenting nor opposing: which being observed by the Earl-Marshal, he is said to have broke out into these words following; — “ Seeing” (saith he) “that my Lords the Bishops (who by their learning can, and for the zeal they should have to the truth ought, as I suppose, to gainsay anything repugnant to it.), say nothing against the confession we have heard; I cannot think but that it is the very truth of God, and that the contrary of it false and deceivable doctrine.” 14. Let us now cross over into Ireland, where we shall find the Queen as active in advancing the reformed religion, as she had been in either of the other kingdoms. King Henry had first broke the ice, by taking to himself the title of Supreme \lead on earth of the Church of Ireland, exterminating the Pope’s authority, and suppressing all the monasteries and religious houses. In matters doctrinal, and forms of worship, as there was nothing done by him, so neither was there much endeavored in the time of King Edward; it being thought perhaps unsafe to provoke that people in the King’s minority, considering with how many troubles he was elsewhere exercised. If anything were done therein, it was rather done by toleration than command; and whatsoever was so done, was presently undone again in the reign of Queen Mary. But Queen Elizabeth, having settled her affairs in England, and undertaken the protection of the Scots, conceived herself obliged in point of piety that Ireland also should be made partaker of so great a benefit. A Parliament is therefore held on the 12th of January, where passed an Act restoring to the Crown the ancient jurisdiction over all ecclesiastical and spiritual persons. By which statute were established both the Oath of Supremacy and the High Commission, as before in England. There also passed an Act for the Uniformity of Common Prayer, etc., with a permission for saying the same in Latin, in such Church or place where the Minister had not the knowledge of the English tongue. But for translating it into Irish (as afterwards into Welsh, in the fifth year of this Queen), there was no care taken, either in this Parliament, or in any following. For want whereof, as also by not having the Scriptures in their native language, most of the natural Irish have retained hitherto their old barbarous customs, or pertinaciously adhere to the corruptions of the Church of Rome. The people by that statute are required, under several penalties, to frequent their Churches, and to be frequent at the reading of the English Liturgy, which they understand no more than they do the Mass. By which means the Irish was not only kept in continual ignorance as to the doctrines and devotions of the Church of England, but we have furnished the Papists with an excellent argument against ourselves, for having the divine service celebrated in such a language as the people do not understand.. 15. There also passed another statute for restoring to the Crown the first-fruits, and twenty parts of all ecclesiastical promotions within that kingdom; as also of all impropriate parsonages, which there are more in number than those rectories which have cure of souls. King Henry had before united the first-fruits, etc., to the Crown Imperial, but Queen Mary, out of her affection to the Church of Rome, had given them back unto the Clergy, as before was said. The like act passed for the restitution of all such lands belonging to the knights of St John of Jerusalem, as by that Queen had been regranted to the order; with the avoidance of all leases and other grants which had been made by Sir Oswald Massingberd, the late Prior of the stone. Who, fearing what was like to follow, had voluntarily forsook the kingdom in the August foregoing, and thereby saved the Queen the charge of an yearly pension, which otherwise he might have had, as his predecessors had before him in the time of King Henry. During the reign of which King, a statute had been made in Ireland (as in England also) for the electing and consecrating of Archbishops and Bishops, — repealed in the first year of Queen Mary, and now revived by her sister; in which there is nothing more memorable than that, amongst many other ceremonies therein directed, there is mention of giving the pall to a new Archbishop, that being an ornament or habit peculiar only unto those of the highest rank in the holy hierarchy. And that she might not only take care for the good of the Church, without consulting her own safety, she caused an act to pass for the recognition of her own just title to the Crown, as before in England. All which being done, she left the prosecution of the work to her Bishops and Clergy, — not so well countenanced by power as they were by law, and yet more countenanced by law than they made good use of. For many of them, finding how things went in England, and knowing that the like alterations would ensue amongst themselves, resolved to make such use of the present times as to enrich their friends and kindred by the spoil of their churches. To which end they so dissipated the revenues of their several Bishoprics, by long leases, fee farms, and plain alienations, that to some of their sees they left no more than a rent of five marks per annum, to others a bare yearly rent of forty shillings, to the high displeasure of Almighty God, the reproach of religion, the great disservice of the Church, and the perpetual, ignominy of themselves for that horrible sacrilege. 16. It is now time that we boise sail for England, where we shall find an entertainment made ready for us in a sermon preached by reverend Jewel, then newly consecrated Bishop of the Church of Sarisbury; the sermon preached at St Paul’s Cross on the 31 st of March, being Passion- Sunday, or the Sunday fortnight before Easter, the text or theme of his discourse being taken out of St Paul’s 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, chap. 11 ver. 23. — “That which I delivered to you I received of the Lord,” etc. Which text being opened, and accommodated to the present times, he published that memorable challenge, which so much exercised the pens and studies of the Romish Clergy, by whom the Church had been injuriously upbraided with the imputation of novelty, and charged with teaching such opinions as were not to be found in any of the ancient Fathers, or approved Councils, or any other monument of true antiquity, before Luther’s time. For the stopping of whose mouths for ever, this learned prelate made this stout and gallant challenge in these following words. BISHOP JEWEL’S CHALLENGE. “If any learned man of our adversaries, or all the learned men that be alive, be able to bring any one sufficient sentence out of any old Catholic Doctor or Father, or general Council, or Holy Scripture, or any one example in the primitive Church, whereby it may clearly and plainly be proved, during the first six hundred years: 1. That there was at that time any private Mass in the world; 2. Or that there was then any Communion ministered unto the people under one kind; 3. Or that the people had their Common Prayer in a strange tongue that the people understood not; 4. Or that the Bishop of Rome was then called an universal Bishop, or the head of the universal Church; 5. Or that the people were then taught to believe that Christ’s body is really, substantially, corporally, carnally, or naturally in the Sacrament; 6. Or that his body is or may be in a thousand places or more at one time; 7. Or that the Priest did then hold up the Sacrament over his head; 8. Or that the people did then fall down and worship it with godly honor; 9. Or that the Sacrament was then or now ought to be hanged up under a canopy; 10. Or that in the Sacrament, after the words of Consecration, there remain only the accidents and shows, without the substance, of bread and wine; 11. Or that then the Priest divided the Sacrament into three parts, and afterwards received himself all alone; 12. Or that whosoever had said the Sacrament is a figure, a pledge, a token or a remembrance of Christ’s body, had therefore been judged for an heretic; 13. Or that it was lawful then to have thirty, twenty, fifteen, ten, or five masses said [in one Church] in one day; 14. Or that images were then set up in the Churches, to the intent the people might worship them; 15. Or that the lay people were then forbidden to read the word of God in their own tongue; 16. Or that it was then lawful for the Priest to pronounce the words of Consecration closely, or in private to himself; 17. Or that the Priest had then authority to offer up Christ unto his Father; 18. Or to communicate and receive the Sacrament for another, as they do; 19. Or to apply the virtue of Christ’s death and passion to any man by the means of the Mass; 20. Or that it was then thought a sound doctrine to teach the people, that Mass ex opere operato, that is, even for that it is said and done, is able to remove any part of our sin; 21. Or that any Christian man called the Sacrament the Lord his God; 22. Or that the people were then taught to believe that the body of Christ remaineth in the Sacrament, as long as the accidents of bread and wine remain there without corruption; 23. Or that a mouse, or any other worm or beast, may eat the body of Christ, (for so some of our adversaries have said and taught); 24. Or that when Christ said Hoc est corpus meum, the word hoc pointed not. the bread, but individuum vagum, as some of them say; 25. Or that the accidents, or forms, or shows of bread and wine be the Sacraments of Christ’s body and blood, and not rather the very bread and wine itself; 26. Or that the Sacrament is a sign or token of the body of Christ that lieth hidden underneath it; 27. Or that ignorance is the mother and cause of true devotion [and obedience]: — the conclusion is, that I shall be then content to yield and subscribe.” 17. This Challenge, being thus published in so great an auditory, startled the English Papists both at home and abroad, — none more than such of the fugitives as had retired to Lovain, Doway, or Saint Odomar’s, in the Low-Country provinces belonging to the King of Spain. The business first agitated by the exchange of friendly letters betwixt the said reverend Prelate and Dr Henry Cole, the late Dean of St Pauls; more violently followed in a book of Rastal’s, who first appeared in the lists against the Challenger. Followed therein by Dorman and Marshal, who severally took up the cudgels to as little purpose; the first being well beaten by Nowel, and the last by Calfhil, in their discourses writ against them. But they were only velitations, or preparatory skirmishes in reference to the main encounter, which was reserved for the reverend Challenger himself and Dr John Harding, one of the Divines of Lovain, and the most learned of the College. The combatants were born in the same county, bred up in the same grammar-school, and studied in the same university also: so that it may be said of them, as the historian hath of Jugurth and Sylla under Caius Marius, — that is to say, that they both learned those feats of arms in the same camp, and under the same commander, which afterwards they were to exercise against one another. Both zealous Protestants also in the time of King Edward, and both relapsed to Popery in the time of Queen Mary — Jewel for fear, and Harding upon hope of favor and preferment by it. But Jewel’s fall may be compared to that of Saint Peter, which was short and sudden; rising again by his repentance, and fortified more strongly in his faith than before he was: but Harding’s like to that of the other Simon, premeditated and resolved on; never to be restored again — (so much was there within him of “the gall of bitterness”) — to his former standing. But some former differences had been between them in the Church of Sarisbury, whereof the one was Prebendary.,. and the other Bishop, occasioned by the Bishop’s visitation of that Cathedral, in which as Harding had the worst, so was it a presage of a second foil which he was to have in this encounter.

Who had the better of the day, will easily appear to any that consults the writings; by which it will appear how much the Bishop was too hard for him at all manner of weapons. Whose learned answers, as well in maintenance of his “Challenge,” as in defense of his “Apology,” — (whereof more hereafter) — contain in them such a magazine of all sorts of learning, that all our controversors since that time have furnished themselves with arguments and authority, from it. 18. But these discourses came not out until some years after, though the occasion was given now by this famous Challenge; — the interval being spent in preparations by the Romish party, before they showed themselves in public. In the mean time, the Papists, mad enough before, seemed to grow more outrageous upon this occasion, though they were willing to impute it to some other cause. Philip of Spain showed himself much incensed against her, as well for altering the religion here by him established, as for refusing him in marriage when the offer had been made unto her by the Count of Feria; nor was the Count less troubled at it than the King. And in this melancholy humor he employs all his interess with the Pope then being for subjecting her unto a sentence of excommunication. Which motion if it had been pressed on Pope Paul the Fourth, who seemed very much displeased at her for accepting the Crown without his consent, there is no question to be made but that it had been hearkened to with a listening ear, and executed with a rash and ungoverned hand. But Paul the Fourth deceased about the middle of August in the year last past, and John Angelo, Cardinal of Medices, succeeded him, by the name of Pope Plus the Fourth, in December following. Who, being a more moderate man, did not think fit to proceed to such extremities; for, seeing that his power was a thing rather consisting in the conceits of men than in truth and substance, if it should once appear that this thunderbolt of excommunication (whereby the world is so much terrified), should prove ineffectual and without all power, then might this great authority fall into contempt, and become ridiculous. Upon which ground he goes another way to work, and is resolved to try all fair and plausible means for gaining her to the obedience of the See Apostolic. To which end he directs unto her an affectionate letter, in which he calls her his “dearest daughter,” and seems exceeding careful of her salvation and the prosperity of her people — not to be found by wandering out of the communion of the Catholic Church, to which she is again invited with much Christian meekness.

Which letter he dispatcheth by the hands of Vincentius Parpalia, a right trusty minister, and one (by reason of some former employments hither in the time of Queen Mary) not unknown to her. Whom he had furnished also with some secret instructions to be communicated to her at his being in England, concerning which (for with that intimation he concludes his letter), the same Vincentius was to deal more largely with her, and declare his fatherly affection towards her; she being in like sort desired to receive him lovingly, to hear him diligently, and to give the same credit to his speeches as she would to the Pope himself. 19. This letter of the Pope’s bears date on the 5th of May, anno 1560; before which time the Queen had caused the English Liturgy to be translated into Latin, using therein the pen and diligence of Walter Haddon, (as some suppose), who afterwards appeared against Ossorius upon several arguments. And, being translated into Latin, it was commended by her letters patents of the first of April, not only to all Colleges and Halls in both Universities, but also to the Colleges of Eaton and Winchester, to be used by them in their several and respective Chapels. And she caused, further, some selected hymns to be added to it, for some particular occasions; but most especially to be sung in funerals and solemn obsequies: which, not being warranted by the statute of the year preceding, were therefore authorized with a non obstante. All which as she was thought to do, to satisfy and instruct all foreign princes in the form and fashion of our devotions, — so did she so far satisfy the Pope then being, that he showed himself willing to confirm it by his papal power. The learned Cambden, who received all his choice intelligence from Sir William Cecil, (but better known in his last times by the name of Lord Burleigh), gives us to understand, that this Parpalia was instructed to offer in the name of his Holiness, that the English Liturgy should be confirmed; the use of the Communion in both kinds allowed of; and that all sentences which had passed in the Court of Rome against the marriage of her mother should be rescinded and made void, — conditioned only, that she would reunite herself to the Roman Church, and acknowledge the primacy of that see. For the carrying on of which accord, the Abbot was commissioned to distribute some thousands of crowns amongst such men as should be found most forward to effect the same. Sanders makes this to be another of his secret mandates, that, if she had any diffidence in her title to the Crown of England, either in regard of the doubt-fullness of her legitimation, or anything which had been done by the authority of the Pope and Church of Rome, all matters should be cleared and sweetened to her best advantage, by the benignity and favor of the See Apostolic. But for all this, the Abbot came no nearer than Brussels with his bulls and faculties, not being suffered to set foot upon English ground: whether it were upon a probable suspicion, that, under color of such plausible and specious overtures, he was designed to encourage: a rebellion amongst the Papists, as was thought by some; or rather, that the Queen was grown so confident of her own just title and the affections of her people as not to be beholden to the Pope for a confirmation, — remains a matter undetermined by our best historians. How it succeeded with this Pope in another project for the reducing of this kingdom under his command, we shall see hereafter. 20. But all this while there was no care taken to suppress the practice of another faction, who secretly did as much endeavor the subversion of the English Liturgy, as the Pope seemed willing to confirm it; for whilst the prelates of the Church and the other learned men before remembered bent all their forces toward the confuting of some Popish errors, another enemy appeared, which seemed not openly to aim at the Church’s doctrines, but quarreled rather at some rites and extrinsicals of it. Their purpose was to show themselves so expert in the art of war as to take in the outworks of religion first, before they leveled their artillery at the fort itself. The schismatics at Franckfort had no sooner heard of Queen Mary’s death, but they made what haste they could for England, in hope of fishing better for themselves in a troubled water than a composed and quiet current.

Followed not long after by the brethren of the separation which retired from thence unto Geneva; who, having left some few behind to complete their notes upon the Bible, and make up so many of the Psalms in English meter as had been left unfinished by Sternhold and Hopkins, hastened as fast homewards as the others. But notwithstanding all their haste, they came not time enough to effect their purposes, either in reference to the Liturgy or episcopal government; on which the Queen bad so resolved, according to her own most excellent judgment, that they were not able to prevail in either project. It grieved them at the heart that their own prayers might not be made the rule of worship in their congregations, and that they might not lord it here in their several parishes, as Calvin did in the Presbytery of the Church of Geneva. Some friends they had about the Queen, and Calvin was resolved to make use of all his power and credit both with her and Cecil (as appears by his letters unto both) to advance their ends; and he was seconded therein by Peter Martyr, who thought his interest in England to be greater than Calvin’s, though his name was not so eminent in other places. But the Queen had fixed herself on her resolution of keeping the Church in such outward splendor as might make it every way considerable in the eye of the world; so that they must have faith enough to remove a mountain, before they could have hope enough to draw her to them. When, therefore, they saw the Liturgy imposed by Act of Parliament, and so many episcopal Sees supplied with able pastors, nothing seemed more expedient to them than to revive the quarrels raised in King Edward’s time against caps and surplices, and such particulars as had then been questioned in the public Liturgy; and herein they were seconded (as before in King Edward’s time), by the same Peter Martyr, as appears by his letters to a nameless friend, bearing date at Zurick, on the fourth of November, 1560, to which he added his dislike in another of his letters to the same friend also, touching the same and other points proposed unto him, that is to say, the cap, the episcopal habit, the patrimony of the Church, the manner of proceeding to be held against Papists, the. perambulation used in the Rogation weeks, with many other points of the like condition, in which his judgment was desired. 21. But these helps being too far off, and not to be consuited with upon all inconveniences without a greater loss of time than could consist with the impatiency of their desires, they fell upon another project, which promised them more hopes of setting up their discipline and decrying the Liturgy than quarrels about caps and vestments. Some friends they had about the Court, as before was said, and Gryndal, the new Bishop of London, was known to have a great respect to the name of Calvin. The business, therefore, is so ordered, that by Calvin’s letters unto Gryndal, and the friends they had about the Queen, way should be given to such of the French nation as had repaired hither to enjoy the freedom of their own religion, to have a Church unto themselves, and in that Church not; only to erect the Genevian discipline, but to set up a form of Prayer which should hold no conformity with the English Liturgy. They could not but remember those many advantages which John a Lasco and his Church of strangers afforded to the Zuinglian gospellers in the reign of King Edward, and they despaired not of the like, nor of greater neither, if a French Church were settled upon Calvin’s principles, in some part of London. A synagogue had been built for the use of the Jews, anno 1231, not far from the place in which now stands the Hall of the Merchant-Taylors, near the Royal Exchange; but the Jews having removed themselves to some other place, the Christians obtained that it should be dedicated to the blessed Virgin, and by that name was given unto the brotherhood of St Anthony of Vienna by King Henry the Third. After which time, an hospital was there founded by the name of St Anthony, consisting of a master, two priests, one school-master, twelve poor men; enlarged in the succeeding times by the addition of a fair grammar-school, and other public buildings for the use of the brethren. It was privileged by King Edward the Fourth to have priests, clerks, scholars, poor men, and brethren of the same, [clerks] or lay-men, choristers, proctors, messengers, servants in household, and other things whatsoever, like unto the prior and covent of St Anthony of Vienna, etc.; and, being privileged, it was annexed to the collegiate chapel of St George of Windsor, under whose patronage it remained, but much impoverished by the fraud and folly of one of its schoolmasters, till the final dissolution of it, amongst other hospitals and brotherhoods, by King Edward the Sixth; so that, being vested in the Crown, and of no present use to the city, it was no hard matter to obtain it for the use of the French, as it still continueth. 22. And now again we have another Church in London, as different from the Church of England in government and forms of worship, and some doctrinals also, as that of John a Lasco was in the Augustine Friars. Nor must we marvel if we find the like dangerous consequents to ensue upon it; for what else is the setting up of a presbytery in a Church founded and established by the rules of episcopacy, than the erecting of a commonwealth or popular estate in the midst of a monarchy? Which Calvin well enough perceived, and there upon gave Gryndal thanks for his favor in it; of whom they after served themselves upon all occasions. Upon the news of which success, divers both French and Dutch repaired into England, planting themselves in the sea-towns, and openly professing the reformed religion; under which covert they disguised their several heterodoxies and blasphemous dotages, — some of them proving to be Anabaptists, others infected with unsound opinions of as ill a nature, but all endeavoring to disperse their heretical doctrines, and, by envenoming the good people amongst whom they lived, to increase their sects. Which being made known unto the Queen, she presently commands them all by her proclamation to depart the kingdom, whether they were aliens or naturalborn English, and not to stay above the term of twenty days, upon pain of imprisonment, and forfeiture of all their goods. Which proclamation notwithstanding, too many of them lurked in England without fear of discovery, especially after the erecting of so many French and Dutch churches in the maritime parts; as at this time they did in London, infecting the French and Dutch churches there with some of their frenzies, and occasioned such disputes amongst them upon that account, that Peter Martyr found it necessary to interpose his authority with them, to the composing of those heats and differences which had grown amongst them; for which consult his letter bearing date at Zurick on the 15th of February next following after the date of the said proclamation, and superscribed, ‘Unto the Church of Strangers in the city of London.’ 23. Brow for the date of the said proclamation, it seemeth to have been about the 19th of September; at which time it pleased the Queen to set forth another, no less conducing to the honor, than did the other to the preservation of the Church’s purity. She had given command by her injunctions in the year foregoing, “For destroying and taking away all shrines, and coverings of shrines, all tables, candlesticks, trindals, and rolls of wax, together with all pictures, paintings, and other monuments of feigned miracles, pilgrimages, idolatry and superstition, so that there remain no memory of the same in walls, glass-windows, or elsewhere, whether it were in churches or men’s private houses.” But some, perverting rather than mistaking her intention in it, guided by covetousness, or overruled by some new fangle in religion, under color of conforming to this command, defaced all such images of Christ and his Apostles, all paintings which presented any history of the holy Bible, as they found in any windows of their churches or chapels. They proceed also to the breaking down of all coats of arms, to the tearing off of all the brasses on the tombs and monuments of the dead, in which the figures of themselves, their wives or children, their ancestors, or their arms, had been reserved to posterity. And, being given to understand that, bells had been baptized in the times of popery, and that even the churches themselves had been abused to superstition and idolatry, their zeal transported them in fine to sell their bells, to turn the steeples into dove-cotes, and to rob the churches of those sheets of lead with which they were covered. For the restraining of which sacrilege and profane abuses, she gave command in her said proclamation of the 19th of September, “That all manner of men should from thenceforth forbear the breaking or defacing of any parcel of any monument, or tomb, or grave, or other inscription and memory of any person deceased, being in any manner of place; or to break any image of kings, princes, or noble estates of this realm, or of any other, that have been in times past erected and set up for the only memory of them to their posterity, in common churches, and not for any religious honor; or to break down or deface any image in glass-windows in any church, without the consent of the ordinary: upon pain of being committed to the next gaol without bail or mainprize, and there to remain till the next coming of the justices for gaol-delivery, and then to be further punished by fine or imprisonment (besides the restitution or re-edification of the thing broken), as to the said justices shall seem meet, and, if need shall be, to use the advice of her Majesty’s Council in her Star-Chamber.” 24. It was also signified in the said proclamation, “That some patrons of churches and others, who were possessed of impropriations, had prevailed with the parson and parishioners to take or throw down the bells of churches or chapels, and the lead of the same, and to convert the same to their private gain, by which ensued not only the spoil of the said churches, but even a slanderous desolation of the places of prayer.” And thereupon it was commanded, “that no manner of person should from thenceforth take away any bells or lead off any church or chapel, under pain of imprisonment during her Majesty’s pleasure, and such further fine for the contempt as shall be thought meet;” with a charge given to all Bishops and other Ordinaries, “to inquire of all such contempts done from the beginning of her Majesty’s reign, and to enjoin the persons offending to repair the same within a convenient time, and of their doing therein to certify the Privy Council, or the Council in the Star-chamber, that order may be taken therein.” And in pursuit of this most seasonable and religious act, she did not only sign the said proclamation, one for all, to authorize it for the press, as the custom is, but signed them every one apart (amounting to a very great number) with her own royal hand, that so it might be known rather for her own proper act than an act of the council. 25. With like care also she provided for the honor and prosperity of her estate in affairs politic and civil. The monies of the realm had been much debased by King Henry the Eighth, to the great disprofit of the merchant and reproach of the kingdom; for which no remedy had been taken by her brother or sister, though they had better opportunities, and more advantages to go through with it. But this brave Queen, endeavoring nothing more than the restoring of her kingdom to its ancient splendor, first caused all such base monies as were coined by any of her predecessors to be decried to a less value, according to the fineness or alloy thereof; and that being done, by virtue of her proclamation bearing date the 28th of September, she caused all the said base monies, so reduced to a lower value, to be brought in to her Majesty’s Mint, for which she gave them money of the purest silver, (such as passed commonly by the name of Easterling or sterling money): since which, time, no base money hath been coined in England, but only of pure gold and silver, to pass for current in the same; save that of late times, in relation to the necessity of poor people, a permission hath been given to the coining of farthings, which no man can be forced to accept in satisfaction of a rent or debt: which, as it could not be affirmed of England in the times preceding, so neither can it now be said of any state or nation in the Christian world; in all which there are several sorts of copper money, as current with them for public uses as the purest metal. She provided also in like manner for her people’s safety, and the increase of trade and merchandize in English bottoms; for, towards the end of this second year, she made great preparation of ordnance, arms, munition, and powder of her own materials, to be in a readiness to defend her realm in all emergencies of danger: for the advancing of which service it so pleased the divine Providence which watched over her actions, that a rich mine of brass was found near Keswick in Cumberland, such as sufficed not only for furnishing her own forts and ships with all manner of ordnance, but for supplying other countries as their wants required. And, to complete so great a mercy in her preservation, the stone called Lapis Calaminaris, exceeding necessary for all brass-works, was at the same time also found in England in most plentiful manner. And whereas complaint was made unto her by the merchants of the Hanstowns, or merchants of the Steelyard, as then commonly called, that King Edward had first seized their liberties, and that afterwards Queen Mary had raised their customs upon all sorts of merchandizes from one to twenty in the hundred, her answer was, that, as she was resolved not to innovate any thing, so she could grant no other privileges and immunities to them than those in which she found them when she came to the Crown. Their trading hereupon being intermitted, the English merchants took the managing of it upon themselves, and thrived therein so well after some adventures, that cloth and other manufactures, heretofore transported in the ships of those merchants, were from henceforth fraughted and dispersed in English vessels; by means whereof the English in a very short time attained unto the reputation of being the wealthiest merchants, the most expert mariners, and the ablest commanders for sea-fights, of any nation in the world. 26. I shall conclude this year with a work of piety in the foundation of the Collegiate Church of St Peter in Westminster, which in the space of twenty years had been changed from an abbey to a deanery, from a deanery to a see episcopal, reduced unto a deanery again, and finally restored to the state of an abbey. But the abbey being dissolved in the foregoing Parliament, an offer was made to Fecknam and the rest of the convent (if Sanders be to be believed in this particular) for continuing in their places and possessions as before they did, dogged with no other conditions than the taking of the oath of Supremacy, and officiating all divine offices by the English Liturgy. But this offer being by them rejected, the Act of dissolution passed in both houses of Parliament; concerning which there goes a story, that the Lord Abbot being then busied in planting some young elms in the Dean’s yard there, one that came by advised him to desist from his purpose, telling him, that the bill was just then passed for dissolving his monastery. To which the good old man replied, that he resolved howsoever to go on with his work, being well assured that that Church would be always kept for an encouragement and seat of learning.

And so it proved in the event; for the Queen, having pleased herself in the choice of some of the best lands which remained unto it, confirmed the rest upon that Church, which she caused to be called the Collegiate Church of St Peter in Westminster, as appears by her Letters Patents bearing date in the second year of her most gracious and most prosperous reign. A foundation of a large capacity, and as amply privileged, consisting of a Dean and twelve secular Canons, two schoolmasters and forty scholars, petit Canons and others of the quire to the number of thirty, ten officers belonging to the Church, and as many servants appertaining to the College diet, and twelve alms-men, besides many officers, stewards, receivers, and collectors, for keeping courts, and bringing in of their revenue: the principal of which, called the High Steward of Westminster, hath ever since been one of the prime nobility, and in great favor at the Court. The Dean entrusted with keeping the Regalia, honored with a place of necessary service at all coronations, and a commissioner for the peace within the City of Westminster and the liberties of it by Act of Parliament. The Dean and Chapter vested with all manner of jurisdiction both ecclesiastical and civil, not only within the city and liberties of Westminster, but within the precinct of St Martins le Grand and some towns of Essex, — exempted in the one from the Bishop of London, and in the other from the power of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The scholars annually preferred by election, either to Christ Church in Oxon, or Trinity College in Cambridge, each College being bound by an indenture made with Queen Elizabeth to take off yearly two or three at the least (though since that number is extended to four or five), to be preferred to scholarship and fellowships in their several houses. A College founded, as it proved, in such a happy conjuncture, that since this new foundation of it, it hath given breeding and preferment to four Archbishops, two Lord Chancellors or Lord Keepers of the Great Seal of England, twenty-two Bishops, and thirteen Deans of Cathedral Churches, besides Archdeacons and Prebendaries, and other dignitaries in the Church to a proportional number; which is more than can be said of either of the two famous Colleges of Eaton and Winchester, or of both together, though the one was founded 168, and the other 114 years before it.

ANNO REGNI ELIZ. 3, ANNO DOM. 1560, 1561. 1. WE shall begin this third year of the Queen with the death of Francis the Second, King of the French, who deceased on the fifth day of December, when he had scarce lived to the end of his seventeenth year, and had reigned hut one year and five months, or thereabouts. His death much altered both the counsels and affairs of Christendom,--distracting the French nation into schisms and factions, encouraging the Scots to proceed with confidence in their reformation, and promising no small security to Queen Elizabeth, in regard of the pretensions of the Queen of Scots. But so little was her condition bettered by it, that she seemed to be in more danger by the acts of her enemies after his decease than formerly in the time of his life and government. Francis of Guise, a man of great abilities for camp and council, had made himself a very strong party in the Court of France, which he intended to make use of for the Queen of Scots, whose mother, the late Queen Regent of Scotland, was his only sister. And this he might the better do by reason of a division in the Court of France about the government of the kingdom during the minority of Charles the Ninth, the second brother and next heir to the King deceased. Katherine de Medices, the relict of Henry the Second, and the mother of Charles, lays claim to the Regency; for who could have a greater care, either of the young King’s person or estate, than his natural mother? But against her, as being a mere stranger to the nation and affairs of France, Anthony of Burbon, Duke of Vendosme by descent, and King of Navarr, at the least in title, in the right of Joan d’Albret his wife, the sole heir of that Crown, lays his claim unto it, as being the first Prince of the blood, and therefore fitter to be trusted with the Regency by the rules of that Government. The Guisian faction join themselves to that of the Queen, of whom they better knew how to make advantage than they could of the other, and to that end endeavor by all subtle artifices to invest her in it. 2. To this end they insinuate themselves into the Duke, persuade him either to relinquish his demands of the Regency, or to associate himself with the Queen-mother in the public government; and to join counsels with the Catholic party for suppressing the Hugonots. Which that they might allure him to, or at least take him off from his first pursuit, they offered to procure a divorce from his present wife, and that, instead of holding the kingdom of Navarr in right of his wife, he should hold it in his own personal capacity by a grant from the Pope, his wife being first deprived of it by his Holiness, as suspected of Lutheranism; that being divorced from his wife, he should marry Mary Queen of the Scots, with whom he should not only have the kingdom of Scotland, but of England also, of which Elizabeth was to be deprived on the same account; that for the recovery of that kingdom he should not only have the Pope’s authority and the power of France, but also the forces of the King of Spain; and finally, that the Catholic King did so much study his contentment, that, if he would relinquish his pretensions to the Crown of Navarr, he should be gratified by him with the sovereignty and actual possession of the Isle of Sardinia, of which he should receive the Crown with all due solemnities. By which temptations when they had rendered him suspected to the Protestant party, and thereby settled the Queen-mother in that place and power which so industriously she aspired to, they laid him by as to the title, permitting him to live by the air of hope for the short time of his life, which ended on the 17th of November, anno 1562. And so much of the game was played in earnest, that the Duke of Guise did mainly labor with the Pope to fulminate his excommunications against Elizabeth, as one that had renounced his authority, apostated from the Catholic religion, and utterly exterminated the profession of it out of her dominions. 3. But the Duke sped no better in this negotiation than the Count of Feria did before. The Pope had still retained some hope of regaining England, and meant to leave no way unpracticed by which he might, obtain the point he aimed at. When first the See was vacant by the death of Pope Paul the Fourth, the Cardinals assembled in the Conclave bound themselves by oath, that, for the better settling of the broken and distracted estate of Christendom, the Council formerly held at Trent should be resumed with all convenient speed that might be. Which being too fresh in memory to be forgotten, and of too great importance to be laid aside, the new Pope had no sooner settled his affairs in Rome, which had been much disordered by the harshness and temerity of his predecessor, but he resolved to put the same in execution. For this cause he consults with some of the more moderate and judicions Cardinals, and by his resolution and dexterity surmounts all difficulties which showed themselves in the design; and he resolved not only to call the Council, but that it should be held in Trent, to which it had been formerly called by Pope Paul the Third, 1545, — that it should rather be a continuance of the former Council, which had been interrupted by the prosecution of the wars in Germany, than the beginning of a new; and that he would invite unto it all Christian Princes, — his dear daughter Queen Elizabeth of England amongst the rest. And on these terms he stood, when he was importuned by the ministers of the Duke of Guise to proceed against her to a sentence of excommunication, and thereby to expose her kingdoms to the next invader.

But the Pope was constantly resolved on his first intention, of treating with her after a fair and amicable manner, — professing a readiness to comply with her in all reciprocal offices of respect and friendship, and consequently inviting her amongst other princes to the following Council; to which if she should please to send her Bishops, or be present in the same by her Embassadors, he doubted not of giving them such satisfaction as might set him in a fair way to obtain his ends. 4. Leaving the Pope in this good humor, we shall go for England, where we shall find the Prelates at the same employment in which we left them the last year, that is to say, with setting forth the consecrations of such new Bishops as served to fill up all the rest of the vacant Sees. The first of which was Robert Horn, Doctor in Divinity, once Dean oft Durham, but better known by holding up the English Liturgy, and such a form of discipline as the times would bear, against the schismatics of Franckfort; preferred unto the See of Winchester, and consecrated Bishop in due form of law, on the 16th of February — of which we shall speak more hereafter on another occasion. On which day also Mr Edmond Scambler, Bachelor of Divinity, and one of the Prebendaries of the new Collegiate Church of St Peter in Westminster, was consecrated Bishop of the Church of Peterborough. During the vacancy whereof, and in the time of his incumbency, Sir William Cecil, principal Secretary of Estate, possessed himself of the best manors in the Soake which belonged unto it; and for his readiness to confirm the said manors to him, preferred him to the See of Norwich, anno 1584. Next follows the translation of Dr Thomas Young, Bishop of Saint David’s, to the See of York, which was done upon the 25th of February — in an unlucky hour to that city, as it also proved; for scarce was he settled in that See, when he pulled down the goodly hall, and the greatest part of the episcopal palace in the city of York, which had been built with so much care and cost by Thomas the elder, one of his predecessors there, in the year of our Lord 1090. Whether it were for covetousness to make money of the materials of it, or out of sordidness to avoid the charge of hospitality in that populous city, let them guess that will. Succeeded in the See of St David’s by Davis, Bishop of St Asaph, translated thither the 21st of May, 1561; as he was by another of the same name, Dr Thomas Davis, within few months after. 5. The province of York being thus fitted with a new Archbishop, it was not long before the consecration of Dr James Pilkington to the See of Durham, which was performed by the hands of his own Metropolitan on the second of March. At whose first coming to that See, he found it clogged with an annual pension of an hundred pound, to be paid into her Majesty’s Exchequer yearly, toward the maintenance of the garrison in the town of Barwick, — first laid upon this Bishopric when that town seemed to be in danger of such French forces as had been brought into that kingdom, or otherwise might fear some practice of the Popish party, for the advancing of the interess of the Queen of Scots. The Bishop’s tenants were protected in their corn and cattle by the power of this garrison, and consequently the more enabled to make just payment of their rents; and it was thought to be no reason that the Queen should be at the sole charge of protecting his tenants, and he enjoy the whole benefit of it without any disbursement. But this was only a pretense for raising some revenue to the Crown out of that rich patrimony; the pension being still charged upon it, though the garrison was removed in the first of King James. On the same day, that is to say the second of March, Dr John Best was consecrated Bishop of Carlisle, after the See had been refused by Bernard Gilphin, Parson of Houghton in the Spring, betwixt Durham and Newcastle. The offer made him with relation to his brother George, a man much used in many employments for the State; but on what ground declined by him, is not well assured. Whether it were that he was more in love with the retirements of a private life, or that he could not have the bird without he yielded to the stripping of it of the most part of its feathers (as it came to Best) — may be sooner questioned than resolved. And finally, on the fourth of May comes in the consecration of Mr William Downham (the Queen’s Chaplain, when she was but Princess, and afterwards made one of the Prebendaries of St Peter’s in Westminster,) to the See of Chester, — by this preferment recompensed for his former services. By which last care the vacant Sees were all supplied with learned pastors, except Oxon, Glocester, and Bristol; of which we shall speak more in the following year. 6. But neither this diligence and care in filling all the vacant Sees with learned pastors, nor the Queen’s proclamation for banishing all Anabaptists and other sectaries which had resorted hither out of other countries, could either free the land from those dangerous inmates, or preserve the Church from the contagion of their poisonous doctrines. Too many of those fanatical spirits still remained behind, scattering their tares, and dispersing their blasphemous follies amongst simple people. In which number they prevailed so far upon More and Geofrys, that the first professed himself to be Christ, the last believed him to be such, and did so report him.

Continuing obstinate in this frenzy, Geofrys was committed prisoner to the Marshalsea in the Borough of Southwark, and More to the house of mad men, (commonly called Bethlem), without Bishop’s Gate, in the City of London. Where having remained above a year, without showing any sign of their repentance, Geofrys was whipped on the 10th of April from the said Marshalsea to Bethlem, with a paper bound about his head, which signified that this was William Geofrys, a most blasphemous heretic, who denied Christ to be in heaven. At Bethlem he was whipped again in the, presence of More, till the lash had extorted a confession of his damnable error. After which More was stripped and whipped in the open streets till he had made the like acknowledgement, confessing Christ to be in heaven, and himself to be a vile, miserable, and sinful man. Which being done, they were again remitted to their several prisons for their further cure. At which the Papists made good game, and charged it on the score of the Reformation, as if the principles thereof did naturally lead men to those dreams and dotages. Whereas they could not choose but know that Christ our Savior prophesied of the following times, that some should say, “lo, here is Christ,” and others would say, “lo, there is Christ; that Simon Magus, even in the days of the Apostles, assumed unto himself the glorious title of “the great power of God;” that Menander in the age next following did boldly arrogate to himself the name of Christ; and, finally, that Montanus, when the Church was stored with learned and religious prelates, would needs be taken and accounted for the 31 Holy Ghost. Or if they think the Reformation might pretend unto more perfection than the primitive times, they should have looked no farther back than to King Henry the Third, in whose reign the Pope’s authority in England was at the highest; and yet neither the Pope, by his authority, nor by the diligence of his preachers and other ministers, could so secure the Church from Mores and Geofrys, but that two men rose up at that very time, both which affirmed themselves to be Jesus Christ, and were both hanged for it. And as Montanus could not go abroad without his.

Maximilla and Priscilla to disperse his dotages, so these impostors also had their female followers, of which the one affirmed herself to be Mary Magdalen, and the other that she was the Virgin Mary. So that the Reformation is to be excused from being accessory in the least degree to these men’s heresies; or else the apostolical age, and the primitive times, yea, and the Church of Rome itself, (which they prize much more,) must needs come under the necessity of the like condemnation. 7. Nor did the Zuinglian Gospellers, or those of the Genevian party, rejoice much less at a most lamentable accident which happened to the cathedral church of St Paul, on the 4th of June; on which day, about four or five of the clock in the afternoon, a fearful fire first showed itself near the top of the steeple, and from thence burnt down the spire to the stone work and bells, and raged so terribly, that within the space of four hours the timber and lead of the whole church, and whatsoever else was combustible in it, was miserably consumed and burnt, to the great terror and amazement of all beholders. Which church, the largest in the Christian world for all dimensions, contains in length 720 foot, or 240 tailor’s yards, in breadth 130 foot, and in height from the pavement to the top of the roof 150 foot.

The steeple, from the ground to the cross or weathercock contained in height 520 foot, of which the square tower only amounted to 260, the pyramid, or spire, to as many more. Which spire being raised of massy timber, and covered over with sheets of lead, as it was the more apt to be inflamed, so was the mischief more incapable of a present remedy. The terror being over, most men began to cast about for the first occasion of such a miserable misfortune; the generality of the Zuinglian or Genevian party affirmed it for a just judgment of God upon an old idolatrous fabric, not thoroughly reformed and purged from its superstitions, and would have been content that all other cathedrals in the kingdom had been so destroyed. The Papists, on the other side, ascribe it to some practice of the Zuinglian faction, out of their hatred unto all solemnity and decency in the service of God, performed more punctually in that church, for example’s sake, than in any other of the kingdom. But, generally, it was ascribed by the common people to a flash of lightning, or some such sudden fire from heaven, though neither any lightning had been seen, or any clap of thunder had been heard that day. Which fiction, notwithstanding, got such credit amongst the vulgar, and amongst wiser persons too, that the burning of St Paul’s steeple by lightning was reckoned amongst the ordinary epochs or accounts of time in our common almanacs; and so it stood till within these thirty years now last past, when an old plumber at his death confessed that woeful accident to have happened through his negligence only, in leaving carelessly a pan of coals and other fuel in the steeple when he went to dinner; which, catching hold of the dry timber in the spire, before his return was grown so dangerous that it was not possible to be quenched, and therefore to no purpose (as he conceived) to make any words of it. Since which discovery, that ridiculous epoch hath no more been heard of. 8. But the Queen quickly hearing what a great misfortune had befallen the city, regarded not the various reports of either party, but bent her thoughts upon the speedy reparation of those fearful ruins; and knowing right well (without the help of an informer) that the patrimony of that Church had been so wasted in these latter times, that neither the Bishop nor the Dean and Chapter were able to contribute any thing proportional to so vast a charge, she directed her letters to the Lord Mayor and City of London to take care therein, as most concerned in the preservation of their mother- Church, and in the honor of their city. In obedience to whose royal pleasure, the citizens granted a benevolence and three fifteens, to be speedily paid, besides the extraordinary bounty of particular persons, or was to be issued from the chamber. And that they might proceed therein with the greater zeal, the Queen sent in a thousand marks in ready money, and warrants for one thousand load of timber to be served out of her Majesty’s woods. Encouraged by which brave example, the clergy of the province of Canterbury contributed towards the furtherance of the work the fortieth part of their benefices which stood charged with first-fruits, and the thirtieth part of those which had paid the same; the Clergy of the diocese of London be-stowing the thirtieth part of such of their livings as were under the burthen of that payment, and the twentieth part of those which were not; to which the Bishop added at several times the sum of 900l . 1s . 11d , the Dean and Chapter 136l . 13s . 4d . By which and some other little helps (the benevolence, the three fifteens, and the contributions of the Bishop and Clergy, with the aid aforesaid, amounting to no more than 6702l . 13s. 4d.) the work was carried on so fast, that before the end of April, 1566, the timber work of the roof was not only fitted, but completely covered. The raising of a new spire was taken also into consideration, but conceived unnecessary; but whether because it was too chargeable, or that some feared it might prove a temptation, is not yet determined. 9. And now the season of the year invites the Pope’s Nuncio into England, — advanced already in his way as far as Flanders, and there expecting the Queen’s pleasure touching his admittance; for the Pope, always constant to his resolutions, could not then be taken off from sending his Nuncio to the Queen, with whom he conceived himself to stand upon terms of amity. It had been much labored by the Guisiards and Spanish faction to divert him from it, by telling him that it would be an undervaluing of his power and person, to send a Nuncio into England, or to any other princes of the same persuasions, who openly professed a separation from the See of Rome. To which he made this prudent and pious answer, — That he would humble himself even to heresy itself, in regard that whatsoever was done to gain souls to Christ, did beseem that See. And to this resolution he adhered the rather, because he had been told and assured by Karn, the old English agent, that his Nuncio would be received by one half of the kingdom, with the Queen’s consent. But as it proved, they reckoned both without their host — and hostess too, who desired not to give entertainment unto such guests. For having designed the Abbot Martiningo to this employment, and the Abbot being advanced as far as Flanders, as before was said, he there received the Queen’s command not to cross the seas. Upon advertisement whereof, as well the King of Spain himself as Ferdinand of Toledo, Duke of Alva, (the most powerful minister of that King,) did earnestly entreat that he might be heard, — commending the cause of his legation, as visibly conducing to the union of all the Christian Church in a general council. But the Queen persevered in her first intent, affirming she could not treat with the Bishop of Rome, whose authority was excluded out of England by consent of Parliament. Nor had the Pope’s Nuncio in France any better fortune in treating with Throgmorton, the English agent in that Court, to advance the business; who, though he did solicit by his letters both the Queen and the Council to give some satisfaction in that point to the French and the Spaniards, (though not unto the Pope himself), could get no other answer from them but the same denial. 10. For so it was, that on the first noise of the Nuncio’s coming, the business had been taken into consideration at the council-table, and strongly pleaded on both sides, as men’s judgments ‘varied. By some it was alleged in favor of the Nuncio’s coming, that Pope Plus was nothing of so rugged a nature as his predecessor; that he had made a fair address unto the Queen by his last year’s letters; that his designs did most apparently tend to the peace of Christendom; that the admitting of the Nuncio was a matter which signified nothing, it being still left in her Majesty’s power whether she would embrace or reject his overtures; but that the refusing to admit him to a public audience was the most ready way to disoblige all Catholic Princes with whom she stood at that time in terms of amity. On the other side it was alleged, that King Henry,, a most prudent Prince, had formerly protested against the calling of this Council by Pope Paul the Third, who did as much pretend to the peace of Christendom as the Pope now being; that to admit a minister of the Pope, in the quality or capacity of a Nuncio, inferred a tacit acknowledgement of that supremacy whereof he had been deprived by Act of Parliament; that the Popes of Rome have always raised great advantages by the smallest concessions; and therefore that it was most expedient for the good of the kingdom to keep him always at a distance; that Queen Mary, in favor only unto Pole, refused to give admittance to Cardinal Peitow, though coming from the Pope in quality of a Legate a latere; that a great part of the people were in discontentment with the change of religion, and wanted nothing but such an opportunity to break out into action as the Nuncio’s presence might afford them; and therefore that it concerned the Queen to be as zealous for religion and the weal of her people as her sister the late Queen Mary was in maintenance of Cardinal Pole and his private authority. Anti to say truth, the greatest obstacle in the way of the Nuncio’s coming was partly laid in it by the indiscretion of some papists in England, and partly by the precipitancy of the Pope’s ministers in Ireland. For so it was, that the only noise of the coming of a Nuncio from the Pope had wrought in sundry evildisposed persons such a courage and boldness, that they did not only break the laws made against the Pope and his authority, with great audacity, but spread abroad false and slanderous reports, that the Queen was at the point to change her religion, and alter the government of the realm. Some also had adventured further, even to a practicing with the devil by conjurations, charms, and casting of figures, to be informed in the length and continuance of her Majesty’s reign. And on the other side, the Pope’s Legate, being at the same time, in Ireland, not only joined himself to some desperate traitors, who busied themselves in stirring up rebellion there, but, for as much as in him was, had deprived her Majesty of all right and title to that kingdom. Upon which grounds it was carried clearly by the Board against the Nuncio. Nor would they vary from the vote upon the intercession of the French, the Spaniard, or — (whose displeasure was more dangerous) — of the Duke of Alva. 11. Nothing discouraged with the repulse which had been given to the French and Spaniard, the Emperor Ferdinand must make trial of his fortune also, — not, as they did, in favor of the Nuncio’s coming, but in persuading her to return to the old religion. To this end he exhorts her by his letters in a friendly way, not to relinquish the communion of so many Catholic Kings and Princes, and her own ancestors into the bargain; not to prefer her single judgment and the judgment of a few private persons, and those not the most learned neither, before the judgment and determination of the Church of Christ; that, if she were resolved to persist in her own opinion, she should deal favorably with so many reverend and religious Prelates as she kept in prison, and which she kept in prison for no other reason but for adhering unto that religion which himself professed; and, finally, he entreats most earnestly that she would set apart some churches to the use of the Catholics, in which they might with freedom exercise their own religion, according to the rites and doctrines of the Church of Rome. To which desires she made a full and sufficient answer, by satisfying him touching her merciful dealing with those Bishops whom, for their obstinacy and many other weighty reasons, she had deprived of their preferments in the Church. And to the rest she answered, — That she had settled her religion on so sure a bottom, that she could not easily be changed; that she doubted not but that she had many learned men in her dominions which were able to defend the doctrine by them taught, against all opponents; and that, for granting any churches to the use of the papists, it was a point so contrary to the policy and good laws of the land that she desired to be excused for not yielding to it. In which last she seemed to have an eye upon the edict of the Emperor Constantine, touching the meetings of the Marcionites, Novatians, Valentinians, and other heretics of that age; in which it was enjoined that none of them should, from thenceforth hold any assemblies; and that, for the more certain conforming unto this decree, those churches or other houses, whatsoever they were, in which they used to hold their meetings, should be demolished to the ground, to the end that there might be no place in which such men as were devoted to their superstitious faction might have the opportunity of assembling together. For which the reader may consult Eusebius in the Life of Constantine, 1, 3 c. 65. But, that it might appear both to him and others that she was ready to show all just favors, she laid a most severe command upon all her officers, for the full payment of all such pensions as had been granted unto all such abbots, monks and friars, in the time of her father, as were not since preferred in the Church to cures or dignities. And this to be performed to the utmost farthing on pain of her most high displeasure in neglect thereof. 12. It could not be, but that the governing of her affairs with such an even and steady hand, though it occasioned admiration in some, must needs create both envy and displeasure in the hearts of other Christian Princes; from none of which she had a juster cause to fear some practice than the King of Spain, or rather from the fierce and intemperate spirit of the Duke of Alva, as appeared afterwards when he was made Lord Deputy or Vicegerent of the Belgic provinces. They had both showed themselves offended, because their intercession in behalf of the Nuncio had found no better entertainment; and when great persons are displeased, it is no hard matter for them to revenge themselves, if they find their adversaries either weak or not well provided. But the Queen looked so well about her as not to be taken tardy in either kind. For which end she augments her store of arms and ammunition, and all things necessary for the defense of her kingdom; which course she had happily begun in the year foregoing. But holding it a safer maxim in the schools of polity, not to admit, than to endeavor by strong hand to expel, an enemy, she entertains some fortunate thoughts of walling her kingdom round about with a puissant navy; for merchants had already increased their shipping, by managing some part of that wealthy trade which formerly had been monopolized by the Hanse or Easterlings. And she resolves not to be wanting to herself in building ships of such a burthen, and so fit for service, as might enable her in short time, not only to protect her merchants, but command the ocean. Of which the Spaniard found good proof to his great loss, and almost to his total ruin, in the last twenty years of her glorious government. And knowing right well that money was the sinew of war, she fell upon a prudent and present course to fill her coffers. Most of the monies in the kingdom were of foreign coinage, brought hither for the most part by the Easterling and Flemish merchants. These she called in by proclamation, dated the 15th of November, (being but two days before the end of this third year), commanding them to be brought to Her Majesty’s Mint, there to be coined and take the stamp of her royal authority, or otherwise not to pass for current within this realm; which counsel took such good effect, that monies came flowing into the Mint, insomuch that there was weekly brought into the Tower of London, for the space of half a year together, 8000l ., 10,000l ., 12,000l ., 16,000l ., 20,000l ., 22,000l ., of silver plate, and as much more in pistols, and other gold of Spanish coins: which were great sums according to the standard of those early days, and therefore no small profit to be growing to her by the coinage of them. 13. The Genevians slept not all this while, but were as busily employed in practicing upon the Church as were the Romanists in plotting against the Queen. Nothing would satisfy them but the nakedness and simplicity of the Zuinglian Churches, the new fashions taken up at Franckfort, and the Presbyteries of Geneva. According to the “pattern which they saw in those mounts,” the Church of England is to be modeled; nor would the temple of Jerusalem have served their turn, if a new altar, fashioned by that which they found at Damascus, might not have been erected in it. And they. drove on so fast upon it, that in some places they had taken down the steps where the altar stood, and brought the holy table into the midst of the church; in others they had laid aside the ancient use of godfathers and godmothers in the administration of Baptism, and left the answering for the child to the charge of the father. The weekly fasts, the time of Lent, and all other days of abstinence by the Church commanded, were looked upon as superstitious observations. No fast by them allowed of but occasional only, and then too of their own appointing. And the like course they took with the festivals also, neglecting those which had been instituted by the Church, as human inventions, not fit to be retained in a Church reformed. And finally, that they might wind in their outlandish doctrines with such foreign usages, they had procured some of the inferior Ordinaries to impose upon their several parishes certain new books of sermons and expositions of the Holy Scripture, which neither were required by the Queen’s Injunctions, nor by Act of Parliament. Some abuses also were discovered in the regular Clergy who served in churches of peculiar or exempt jurisdiction; amongst whom it began to grow too ordinary to marry all such as came unto them, without banns or license, and many times not only without the privity, but against the express pleasure and command, of their parents. For which those churches past by the name of ‘lawless churches’ in the voice of the people. 14. For remedy whereof it was found necessary by the Archbishop of Canterbury to have recourse unto the power which was given unto him by the Queen’s Commission, and by a clause or passage of the Act of Parliament for the Uniformity of Common Prayer and Service in the Church, etc. As one of the Commissioners for causes ecclesiastical, he was authorized, with the rest of his associates, according to the statute made in that behalf, to “reform, redress, order, correct and amend all such errors, heresies, schisms, abuses, offenses, contempts and enormities whatsoever,” as might from time to time arise in the Church of England, and did require “to be redressed and reformed, to the pleasure of Almighty God, the increase of virtue, and conservation of the peace and unity of the kingdom.” And in the passage of the Act before remembered it was especially provided, “That all such ornaments of the Church, and of the Ministers thereof, should be retained and be in use, as were in the Church of England by authority of Parliament, in the second year of the reign of King Edward the Sixth, until further order should be therein taken by authority of the Queen’s Majesty, with the advice of her Commissioners appointed and ordered under the Great Seal of England for causes ecclesiastical, or of the Metropolitan of this Realm. And also if there shall happen any contempt or irreverence to be used in the ceremonies or rites of the Church, by the misusing of the orders of the said Book of Common Prayer, the Queen’s Majesty might, by the like advice of the said Commissioners or Metropolitan, ordain or publish such further ceremonies or rites, as should be most for the advance of God’s glory, the edifying of His Church, and the due reverence of Christ’s holy mysteries and sacraments.” 15. Fortified and assured by which double power, the Archbishop, by the Queen’s consent, and the advice of some of the Bishops, commissionated and instructed to the same intent, sets forth a certain book of Orders, to be diligently observed and executed by all and singular persons whom it might concern. In which it was provided. “That no Parson, Vicar, or Curate of any exempt church, (commonly called’ lawless churches’), should from thenceforth attempt to conjoin by solemnization of matrimony any not being of his or their parish-church, without sufficient testimony of the banns being asked in the several churches where they dwell, or otherwise were sufficiently licensed: that there should be no other days observed for holy days or fasting days, as of duty and commandment, but only such holy days as be expressed for holy days in the Kalendar lately set forth by the Queen’s authority; and none other fasting days to be so commanded, but as the laws and proclamation of the Queen’s Majesty should appoint: that it should not; be lawful to any Ordinary to assign or enjoin the parishes to buy any books of sermons or expositions in any [other] sort than is already, or shall be hereafter, appointed by public authority: that neither the Curates, or parents of the children which are brought to Baptism should answer for them at the font,, but that the ancient use of godfathers and godmothers should be still retained: and finally, that in all such churches in which the steps to the altar were not taken down, the said steps should remain as before they did; that the communion table should be set in the said place where the steps then were, or had formerly stood; and that the table of God’s precepts should be fixed, upon the wall over the said communion board.” Which passage compared with that in the Advertisements, published in the year 1565, (of which more hereafter), make up this construction, — that the communion table was to stand above the steps, and under the commandments; and therefore all along the wall, on which the ten commandments were appointed to be placed: which was directly where the altar had stood before. Some other innovations and disorders had been obtruded on the Church at the same time also by those of the Genevian faction; for the suppressing whereof, before they should prescribe to any antiquity, the like course was taken. But what those innovations and disorders were, will easily be seen by the perusal of the Orders themselves, which were then published in print by the Queen’s command; as a judicious apothecary is able to conjecture by the doctor’s recipe at the distemper of the patient, and the true quality of the disease. 16. Nothing else memorable in this year of a public nature but the foundation of the Merchant-Tailors’ School in London; — first founded by the master, warden, and assistants of the company of Merchant-Tailors, whence it had the name, and by them founded for a seminary to St John’s in Oxon, built and endowed at the sole costs and charges of one of their livery. The school kept in a fair large house in the parish of St Laurence Pountney, heretofore called the Manor of Roose, belonging to the Dukes of Buckingham; towards the purchase and accommodating whereof to the present use, five hundred pounds was given by one Richard Hills, who had been once master of the company, and still lives in the charity of so good a work. The day of the foundation is affirmed by Stow to have been the 21st of March, and so may either fall in the year 1560 or 1561, according to the several computations which are now in use; but howsoever within the compass of this third year of the Queen. And it is probable that it may be fixed by him upon that day, either because the purchase of the house doth bear date upon it, or because it was then first opened for a grammar-school. And of this kind, but of a far more private nature, was the foundation of another grammar-school in the town of Sandwich, built at the charge of Sir Roger Manwood, and endowed with 40l . per annum, which was a very large allowance as the times then were. ANNO REGNI ELIZ. 4.

ANNO DOM. 1561, 1562. 1. GREAT preparations had been made in the former year in order to the holding and continuance of the Council of Trent, — many Italian Bishops (which were to be maintained at the Pope’s charge) being sent before, and the Pope’s Legates hastening after, to be there in readiness when the Embassadors and Prelates of foreign nations should give attendance on the same. After long expectation it begins at the last on the 18th of January, the Legates having first obtained in a private session, that nothing should be discussed in the Council but what should be first proposed by them; which in effect was to subvert the whole hopes of that Reformation which was desired by many pious men amongst them. Which day being come, a procession was made of the whole Clergy of the city, of the Divines and Prelates, (who, besides the Cardinals, were 112 that did wear miters) accompanied by their families, and by many country people armed, going from St Peter’s Church to the cathedral, where the Cardinal of Mantua sung the mass of the Holy Ghost, and Gasparo del Fosso, Archbishop of Rheggio, made the sermon. His subject was the Authority of the Church, Primacy of the Pope, and Power of Councils. He said — That the Church had as much authority as the Word of God; that the Church hath changed the Sabbath, ordained by God, into Sunday, and taken away circumcision, formerly commanded by [his] Divine Majesty; and that these precepts are changed, not by the preaching of Christ, but by the authority of the Church. Turning himself unto the fathers, he exhorted them to labor constantly against the Protestants, being assured, that, as the Holy Ghost could not err, so neither could they be deceived. And, having sung the hymn of “Come, Holy Ghost,” the secretary, who was Bishop of Tilesie, read the Bull of the Convocation, and the foresaid Archbishop propounded the decree for opening the Council, saying, “Fathers, doth it please you that the general Council of Trent should be celebrated from this day, all suspension whatsoever being removed, to handle with due order that which shall seem fit to the Synod, the Legates and Presidents proposing, to remove the controversies of religion, correct manners, and reconcile the peace of the Church?” to which they answered Placet, with so full a vote that there were found no more than four Bishops, and those four all Spaniards, who stumbled at the clause about discussing nothing in the time of that Council but what the Legates should propose; so servile were the rest in prostituting the authority of the Council to the lust of the Pope. 2. In the first opening of the Council it was propounded by the Legates amongst other things — “Whether a safe conduct should be given unto those who were fallen into heresy, with a large promise of great and singular clemency, so that they would repent, and acknowledge the power of the Catholic Church.” In the discussing of which point, the Cardinal of Mantua was for the affirmative, being that it was a remedy used by all Princes, in sedition’s or rebellions, to pardon those whom they could not overcome, because by that means those which were least faulty did retire, and the other did remain more weak. But as for the safe conduct, after it had been considered of and resolved at Rome, it was again disputed in the Council on the third of March, whether it was to be given by name to the French, English, and Scots; and some spoke of the Greeks and other nations of the East. It was presently seen, that these poor men, afflicted in servitude, could not without danger and assistance of money think of Councils; and some said, that, there being a division of the Protestants, it was good to let them alone, and not to name them, alleging the danger of moving ill humors in a body which was then quiet. To give a safe conduct to the Englishmen, which neither they nor any of them did require, would be a great indignity. They were content it should be given to the Scots, because their Queen would demand it; but so as that the demand should first be made. For France there was a doubt made whether the King’s Council would take it ill or not, because it would be thought to be a declaration that that King had rebels. Of Germany none would doubt, because it had. been formerly granted unto them; and if it were granted to that nation alone, it would seem that the others were abandoned. But at the last, all difficulties were resolved into this conclusion, that the safe conduct should be given unto those of Germany in the same words wherein it formerly had passed, anno 1552; and that the like conduct, in the selfsame words wherein it was given to the Germans, should be given to all of every nation, province, city and place, where anything was preached, taught, and believed, contrary to that which was believed in the Church of Rome. 3. But the Legates might have spared themselves the trouble of these considerations, the Protestant Bishops of England not being so forward to venture themselves into that Council on such weak assurance, — considering how ill the safe conduct had been formerly kept to John Hus and Jetom of Prague at the Council of Constance; and as for those of the papal party, though they might have a good will to be gadding thither, yet the Queen kept them safe enough from going abroad: so that there was no hopes for any English Bishops of either party to attend that service. The Queen had absolutely refused to admit the Nuncio, when he was sent on purpose to invite them to it. And some of the most learned of that sacred order had shown sufficient reasons in their printed Manifest, why no such service or attendance could be looked for from them. One Scipio, a gentleman of Venice, who formerly had some acquaintance with Bishop Jewel when he was a student in Padua, had heard of Martiningo’s ill success in his negotiation; which notwithstanding, he resolved to spend some eloquence in laboring to obtain that point by his private letters which the Nuncio could not gain as a public minister: and to this end he writes his letters of expostulation to his old friend Mr Jewel, preferred not long before to the See of Salisbury, — in which he seemed to admire exceedingly that England should send no Embassador, nor message, or letter, to excuse their nation’s absence from the general appearance of Christianity in that sacred Council. In the next place, he highly extolled the antiquity and use of general Councils, as the only means to decide controversies in religion, and compose the distractions in the Church, — concluding it a superlative sin for any to decline the authority of it. But this letter did not long remain unanswered. That learned Prelate was not so unstudied in the nature of councils as not to know how little of a general council could be found at Trent; and therefore he returns an answer to the proposition, so eloquently penned and so elaborately digested, that neither Scipio himself nor any other of that party durst reply upon him; the answer to be found at large in the end of the History of this Council, translated into English by Nathaniel Brent, late warden of Merton College in Oxon, etc.: which, though it were no other than the answer of one single prelate, and writ on a particular occasion to a private friend, yet since it speaks the sense of all the rest of the Bishops, and to justify the result of the Council-table on the debate about accepting or refusing the Pope’s invitation, it will not be amiss to present the sum and substance of it in a short epitome. 4. In the first place, he signifies to the said Scipio, that a great part of the world professing the name of Christ (as Greeks, Armenians, Abyssines, etc. with all the Eastern Church) were neither sent to nor summoned to this Council. Secondly, that England’s absence was not so great a wonder, seeing many other kingdoms and free states (as Denmark, Sweden, Scotland, Princes of Germany, and Hanse-Towns) were not represented in this Council by any of their Embassadors. Thirdly, that this pretended Council was not called according to the ancient custom of the Church, by the imperial authority, but by the papal usurpation. Fourthly, that Trent was a petty place, not of sufficient receipt for such multitudes as necessarily should repair to a General Council. Fifthly, that Pope Pius the Fourth, by whose command the Council was re-assembled, purchased his place by the unjust practices of simony and bribery, and managed it with murder and cruelty. Sixthly, that repairing to Councils was a free act, and none ought to be condemned of contumacy, if it stood more with their conveniency to stay at home. Seventhly, that anciently it was accepted as a reasonable excuse of holy Bishops absenting or withdrawing themselves from any Council, if they vehemently suspected ought would be acted therein prejudicial to the truth, lest their (though not actual) included concurrence might be interpreted a countenancing thereof. Eighthly, That our Bishops were employed in feeding their flocks and governing their Churches, and could not be spared from their charge without prejudice to their consciences. Ninthly, that the members of that Council of Trent, both Bishops and Abbots, were by oath pregaged to the Pope, “to defend and maintain his authority against all the: world.” And lastly, he desired to know in what capacity the English Clergy should appear in this Council? . not as free persons, to debate matters therein, in regard they had been pre-condemned as heretics by Pope Julius the Third.; not as offenders, to receive the sentence of condemnation, to which they had no reason to submit themselves. 5. Of these refusals and the reasons of them, neither the Pope at Rome, nor the Cardinal-Legates in the Council could pretend to be ignorant: yet still the expectation of the coming of some English Bishops must be kept on foot, partly for the encouragement of such as were there already, and partly for the drawing on of others who came slowly forwards; and sometimes also it was used for an artifice to divert the Prelates when any business was in agitation which seemed dangerous to them. For so it happened, that, some of the Prelates being earnest in the point of residence, none of the Legates could devise a better expedient to put off that question, than to propose that some means should be used to set at liberty the English Bishops which were imprisoned by their Queen, that, coming to the Council, it might be said that that noble nation was present also, and not wholly alienated from the Church. This pleased all, but the common opinion was, that it might sooner be desired than hoped for. They concluded, that, the Queen having refused to receive a Nuncio expressly sent from the Pope, it could not be hoped that she would hearken to the Council; therefore all they could do was, to persuade the Catholic Princes to mediate for them. And mediate though they did, as before was said, both for the admitting of the Nuncio, and the restoring of those Bishops to their former liberty, they were not able to prevail, especially as to the licensing of any of them to attend the Council; which if the Queen had yielded to, she must have armed so many of her enemies to disturb her peace, who questionless would have practiced with the Embassadors of all Princes and with the Prelates of all nations whom they found there present, to work some notable alteration in the government and affairs of England.

Of all the Bishops which were left in England at the end of the Parliament, I find none but Pates of Worcester and Goldwel of St Asaph who forsook. the kingdom, though possibly many of the rest might have done so also, if they had not either been well watched, or trusted upon their parol to be forthcoming (as the phrase is) upon all occasions. And, though I find the name of Pates subscribed to some of the former sessions, yet it is not be found to this, . the man being of a moderate and gentle spirit, and possibly not willing to engage himself in any counsels which might prove detrimental to his native country; and as for Goldwel, though his zeal to popery was strong enough to carry him beyond the seas, yet it did not carry him so far as Trent, there being so many retiring places nearer home in which he might repose himself with more contentment. 6. But leaving the Fathers in Trent to expect the coming of the Holy Ghost in a cloak-bag from Rome, according to the common scorn which was lout upon them, we must prepare ourselves for England, — first taking in our way the affairs of France, which now began to take up a great part of the thoughts of the Queen and her Council. The reformed religion had made some entrance in that; kingdom during the reign of King Francis the First, — exceedingly dispersed and propagated in most parts thereof, notwithstanding the frequent martyrdoms of particular persons, the great and terrible massacres of whole townships, commonalties, and churches, even by hundreds and thousands, in divers places of the realm. To which increase, the fickle nature of the French, the diligence of their preachers, and the near neighborhood of Geneva, were of great advantage; all which advantages were much improved by the authority of and reputation which Calvin carried in those churches, and the contentment which the people took in a form of government wherein they were to have a share by the rules of their discipline, and thereby draw the managery of affairs unto themselves. Being grown numerous in the city of Tours, and not permitted to enjoy the liberty of assembling within the walls, they held their meetings at a village not far off, for their public devotions; the way to which leading through the gate of St Hugo is thought to have occasioned the name of Hugonots, which others think to have been given them by reason of their frequent nightly meetings, resembled by the French to the walking of a night-spirit which they called St Hugh; but from what ground soever it came, it grew in short time to be generally given as a by-name to those which professed the reformed religion, (whether in France or elsewhere), after Calvin’s platform. Their numbers, not diminished by so many butcheries, gave them the reputation of a party both stout and active, which rendered them the subject of some jealousy to the Roman Catholics, and specially to those of the house of Guise, who labored nothing more than their extirpation. But this severity sorted to no other effect than to confirm them in their doctrines, and attract many others to them, who disdained to see poor people drawn every day to the stake to be burned, guilty of nothing but of zeal to worship God, and to save their own souls.

To whom were joined many others, who, thinking the Guisiards to be the cause of all the disorders in the kingdom, judged it an heroic act to deliver it from oppression by taking the public administration out of their hands. 7. But nothing more increased their party than the accession of almost all the Princes of the blood of the House of Burbon, the chiefs whereof were the Duke of Vendosme, (who called himself King of Navarr in right of his wife), the Prince of Conde, the Duke of Montpensier; who, finding themselves neglected by the Queen-Mother and oppressed by the Guisiards, retired in no small discontentments from the Court, and, being otherwise unable to make good their quarrels, offered themselves as leaders of the Hugonot faction, who very cheerfully submitted to their rule and conduct. The better to confirm their minds, they caused the principal lawyers of Germany and France, and the most famous Protestant divines, to publish in writing, that, without violating the majesty of the King and the dignity of the lawful magistrate, they might oppose with arms the violent domination of the house of Guise, who did not only labor to suppress the true religion, and obstruct the free passage of justice, but seemed to keep the King in prison. Having thus formed their party in the minority of King Francis the Second, their first design was, that a great multitude should appear before the King without arms, to demand that the severity of the judgments might be mitigated, and liberty of conscience granted; — intending that they should be followed by gentlemen who should make supplication against the government of the Guisiards. But the purpose being made known to the Court, the King was removed from Bloys, an open town, to the strong castle of Amboise, as if he could not otherwise be safe from some present treason: after which followed a strict inquiry after all those who had a hand in the design, the punishment of some, and the flight of others, with the conclusion taken up by the Guisian faction, to settle the Spanish inquisition in the realm of France. To pacify the present troubles, an edict is published by the King on the 18th of March 1560, (in the French account), for the pardoning of all who, simply moved with the zeal of religion, had engaged in the supposed conspiracy, upon condition that they disarmed within twenty-four hours; and after that another edict, by which a general pardon was indulged to all Reformatists, but so that all assemblies under the color of religion were prohibited by it, and a charge laid upon the Bishops to take unto themselves the cognizance of all causes of heresy in their several dioceses. But this so little edified with those of that party, that greater tumults were occasioned by it in Provence, Languedock, and Poictou. To which places the Ministers of Geneva were called, who most willingly came, by whose sermons the number of Protestants so increased in those provinces, and by their agents in most others, that in this year, 1562, they were distributed into two thousand one hundred and fifty Churches, as appeared upon a just computation of them. 8. But in the midst of these improvements, the power and reputation of the side was shrewdly weakened by the falling off of Anthony, Duke of Vendosme and King of Navarr, who did not only openly forsake the party, but afterwards joined himself in counsel and design against it with the Duke of Guise. The foundering of so great a pillar threatened a quick ruin to the fabric, if some other buttress were not found to support the same. The war was carried on from one place to another, but seemed to aim most at the reduction of Normandy, where the Hugonots had possessed themselves of some towns and castles, by which they might be able to distress the city of Paris, and thereby make a great impression on the rest of the kingdom. It was thereupon advised by Louis Prince of Conde, the Cardinal Chastilion, and other of the principal leaders, that they should put themselves under the protection of the Queen of England, who had not long before so seasonably relieved the Scots in the like distress. No better counsel being offered, nor any hope of succor to be had elsewhere, the Vidame of Chartresse, governor at that time of the port of Newhaven, together with the bailiff of Rowen, the seneschal of Diep, and others, made their address unto the Queen, in the name of the Prince of Conde, and of all the rest of the confederates who professed the Gospel in that kingdom; they proffered to her the said towns whereof they had charge, if it would please her Majesty to further their proceedings in defense of the gospel, (as they called it), and seemed to justify their offer by a public acknowledgement, that her Majesty was not only true inheritor to those towns, but also to the whole kingdom of France. But neither their coming nor their message was unknown to her, who had been secretly advertised of all passages there by Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, a vigilant and dexterous man, who, being her Majesty’s resident in that kingdom, had driven the bargain beforehand, and made all things in readiness against their coming. Nor was the Queen hard to be entreated to appear in that cause which seemed so much to her advantage. She was not ignorant of the pretensions of the Queen of Scots, and the practices of her uncles of the house of Guise to advance her interess. Who, if they should possess themselves of all the strengths in the Dukedom of Normandy, might from thence find an easy passage into England, when she least looked for them. 9. On these and other considerations of the like importance, it was agreed upon between them, that the Queen should supply the Prince of Conde and his associates with a sufficient quantity of money, corn, and ammunition, for the service of the French King against the plots and practices of the house of Guise; that she should aid them with her forces both by land and sea, for the taking in of such castles, towns and ports, as were possessed by the faction of the said Duke; that the said Prince of Conde and his associates should not come to any terms of peace with the opposite party, without the privity and approbation of the Queen; and that, as well for securing the payment of all such monies as for the safe going in and out of all such forces as her Majesty should supply them with, the town and port of Newhaven should be put into her Majesty’s hands, to be garrisoned by English soldiers, and commanded by any person, of quality whom her Majesty should authorize to keep and defend the same. Immediately on which accord, a manifest was published in the name of the Queen; in which it was declared, how much she had preferred the peace of Christendom before her own particular interess; that, in pursuance of that general affection to the public peace, she had relinquished her claim to the town of Calais for the term of eight years, when as all other Princes were restored by that treaty to their lost estates; that for the same reasons she had undertaken to preserve the Scots from being made vassals to the French, without retaining any part of that kingdom in her own possession after the service was performed; that with the like bowels of commiseration she had observed how much the Queen-mother of France was awed, and the young King himself enthralled, by the Guisian faction, who in their names and under pretense of their authority endeavored to root out the professors of the reformed religion; that in pursuance of that purpose they had caused such terrible massacres to be made at Vassey, Paris, Sene, Tholouse, Bloys, Towers, Anglers, and other places, that there were thought to be butchered no fewer than one hundred thousand of the natural French, between the 1st of March and the goth of August then last past; that with like violence and injustice they had treated such of her Majesty’s subjects as traded in the ports of Bretaigne, whom they caused to be apprehended, spoiled, and miserably imprisoned, such as endeavored to preserve themselves to be cruelly killed, their goods and merchandise to be seized, without charging any other crime upon them, but that they were Hugonots; and finally, that, in consideration of the premises, her Majesty could do no less than use her best endeavors for rescuing the French King and his mother out of the power of that dangerous faction, for aiding such of the French subjects as preferred the service of their King and the good of their country before all other respects whatsoever, for preserving the reformed religion from an universal destruction, and the maintaining of her own subjects and dominions in peace and safety. 10. Nor did she only publish the aforesaid manifest, the better to satisfy all those whom it might concern in the reasons of her taking arms upon this occasion, but she gives a more particular account of it to the King of Spain, whom she considered as the chief patron of the Guisian League.

And, knowing how unsafe it was for her to appear alone in a cause of that nature and importance, she deals by Knollis and other of her Agents with the Princes of Germany to give their timely assistance to the Prince of Conde, in maintenance of that religion which themselves professed. But howsoever, not expecting the success of those counsels, she proceeds to the supplying of the said Prince and his party with all things necessary for the war, and sends over a sufficient strength of ships, arms, and men, as well to scour the seas as secure the ]and. The men, amounting to 6000, were divided into two equal parts, of which the one was destined to the defense of Rowen and Diep, then being in the hands of the confederates; the other to take possession of the town of Newhaven, which by the townsmen and inhabitants was joyfully surrendered into the hands of the English. The town commodiously seated at the mouth of the Seine, and having the command of a spacious bay, in former times not much observed or esteemed; but, being more carefully considered of by King Francis the First, he caused the bay to be enlarged, the passages into it cleared, and the entrances of it to be strongly fortified; which, falling into the hands of any enemy, might have destroyed the trade of Rowen and Paris, being both built upon the river. Called for this reason Franciscopolis by our Latin writers, Newhaven by the English merchant, and Hayer d’Grace (by reason of the beauty of it), amongst the French, it hath been looked on ever since as a place of consequence. For her Commander-in- Chief, she sends over the Lord Ambrose Dudley, the eldest son then living of the late Duke of Northumberland, whom on the 26th of December, she had created Lord Lisle, and Earl of Warwick. And he accordingly,, preparing for his passage over, took shipping at Portsmouth on the 17th of October, but was so hindered by cross winds, that he could not reach the town till the 29th, where he was solemnly received with a peal of ordnance.

On the morrow after he received into the town a troop of light-horsemen, all Scots, and of the regiment of Count Montgomery, which were sent to him from the port. of Diep, and the next day took the oath of his principal officers, on whose fidelity and courage the safety of the place seemed most to depend. On the fourth of November, a bark belonging to the town brought in four merchants ships of Bretaigne, fraughted for the most part with Gascoin wines, as afterwards two more with the like commodity, which proved a great refreshment to the soldiers in it. And on the sixth the Reingrave showed himself upon the top of the hills with two thousand foot, betwixt whom and the garrison soldiers of Hareflew on the one side, and those of Newhaven on the other, the remainder of the year was taken up in continual skirmishes. 11. Cross we next over into Scotland, that we may see in what condition our affairs stood there. The death of the late French King had made that kingdom so uncomfortable to the Queen of Scots, that she desired to hasten back into her own. And thereunto she was much animated by the heads of either faction, but on different ends: — her presence earnestly solicited by the Popish party, in hope by her authority to suppress their opposites, and by the Protestants on some strong presumptions that they could deal better with her when they had her there, than when she was protected by the power of France, and governed by the counsels of the Guisian faction. Before her leaving of that kingdom, she had been pressed by Throgmorton, the English resident, to ratify the pacification made at Edenborough; to which she would by no means yield, till she had advised with the nobility, and other of her subjects of the realm of Scotland. This makes the Queen of England doubtful that she should be deserted by the Scots of the Congregation, to whom she had done so many good offices in the time of their troubles. But, having dealt with some of the chief amongst them, she found a resolution in them for adhering to her; which so assured her on that side, that she feared but little danger from the Queen and her party, whensoever she came. Which notwithstanding, it was held to be the safer course to intercept her, if they could, in her passage thither. And to that end a squadron of ships was sent to sea, but under color of suppressing some pirates, by whom the trade of merchandise was given out to be hindered. But the taking of one of the Scottish ships, with the Earl of Eglington, and other passengers of that nation that were making homewards, declared sufficiently that they looked for a far richer prize. But for the Queen of Scots herself, by reason of a thick fog which hung over the seas, she passed by the English unperceived, and landed at the port of Lieth on the 20th of August, anno 1561. From thence she sends Lethington the younger with letters to the Queen of England, tending especially to express that great love and kindness which she bare to her, as to her dearest friend and sister, and the desire she had to continue in true and sincere friendship with her. At what time she received letters, also to the same effect from some of the nobility of that kingdom; in which they signified withal, “That the surest way to continue amity and friendship betwixt them two, were to declare the Queen of Scots to be her next and lawful heir to the kingdom of England.” 12. But this demand, as it was unlooked for, so was it of too high a nature to be hastily answered; so that the Laird of Lethington could prevail no further at that time, than to gain a promise from the Queen, that she would do nothing to the prejudice of the title of her cousin of Scotland. The rest was left to be considered of in a personal conference, appointed to be held at York in the end of June. Which motion first proceeded from the Queen of Scots, who was thought to have been earnest and real in it, partly for making a firm peace with her sister of England, and partly to make herself known to the principal subjects of that country. Neither was the meeting disliked of the better sort, as thinking it would serve, besides the preservation of the common peace, to bring her to a liking of the reformed religion. But they who were popishly set, fearing greatly the conference, spoke openly against it, saying that. of such interviews there was never seen any good effect; and that it would not be safe for the Queen of Scots to put herself into the power of her to whose kingdom she had made a claim. But notwithstanding these unprofitable deliberations, the interview was agreed upon, and the numbers on either side determined, and all things provided for the journey, when suddenly the Queen of England by her letters excused herself, desiring that it might be respited till the year next following. Which the Scots Queen was not sorry to hear upon further thoughts, considering how much the French King and her uncles of the House of Guise, might have been dissatisfied on the news of that interparleance. Neither did Queen Elizabeth want her reasons to decline the meeting, which some believe was never really intended by her, but that she hoped the fail would have been on the other side, which would have given her the same cause of quarrel against the daughter, which King Henry took against the father, on the like disappointment. Others conceived that she might fear a growing less by it in the eyes of her people, — the Queen of Scots having so many advantages above her both in youth and beauty. But it was generally concluded to be against all reason of State to give her rival opportunity of growing gracious with the nobility and gentry of England, and laying the foundation of a faction in the Court itself. 13. But the Queen had deeper matters to take up her thoughts than any such feminine jealousies and emulation’s, though these perhaps might also have their place amongst them. A spirit of sedition had begun to show itself in the year last past, upon the bare noise of the coming of the Nuncio hither. Not much diminished — (if it were not much increased) — by the sitting of the Council of Trent, in which it was believed that some proceedings would be had against her. Which seeds, being sown, began first to show themselves in a petit rebellion in Merton College in Oxon; — sufficiently discovered by those small beginnings that some design of greater consequence was in agitation. The Wardenship of that house being void by the death of Gervase, one Man is chosen to the place. But his election being questioned, and his admission thereupon opposed by a contrary faction, the government of the College devolved of course upon one Hall, a Senior Fellow, sufficiently known to be of Popish inclinations, though for the saving of his place he had conformed, as others did, to the present time. No sooner was he in this power, but he retrieves some old superstitious hymns which formerly had been sung on several festivals in the times of Popery, prohibiting the use of such as had been introduced by Gervase, the late Warden there. This gave encouragement and opportunity to the Popish party to insult over the rest, especially over all those of the younger sort, who had not been trained up in their Popish principles; so that it seemed a penal matter to be thought a Protestant. Notice whereof being given to Archbishop Parker, (the ordinary Visitor of that College, in the right of his see) he summoneth Hall on the 20th of May to appear before him, and caused the citation to be fastened to the gate of the College. But his authority in that case was so little regarded that the seal of the citation was torn off by some of that party. Hereupon followed a solemn visitation of the College by the said Archbishop. The result whereof was briefly this, — that all were generally examined; Man confirmed Warden, Hall justly expelled, his party publicly admonished; the young scholars relieved, the Papists curbed and suppressed, and Protestants countenanced and encouraged in the whole University. 14. But this was only the essay of those greater commotions which were to have ensued upon it; though withal it proved a prognostic of their ill success, which constantly attended the designs of the Romish faction. For presently on the neck of this a far more dangerous conspiracy declared itself in some chief leaders of that party. The present sitting of the Council, the practices of some foreign Ministers, and the Queen’s countenancing the French Hugonots, then being in arms against their King, might serve both as encouragement’s and exasperation’s to put that party upon dangerous and destructive projects: and it is possible enough that somewhat might be aimed at by them in favor of the title of the Queen of Scots, or of some other of the race of King Henry the Seventh, by Margaret his eldest daughter, married to James the Fourth of Scotland; which may the rather be supposed, because I find the Lady Margaret, Countess of Lenox, daughter of the said Queen Margaret by her second husband, and mother of Henry Lord Darnley (who was after married to Queen Mary of Scotland) to have been confined unto her house with the Earl her husband, upon suspicion of some practice against the Queen. Certain it is, that many strange whispers were abroad, and no small hopes conceived by those of the Popish faction for suppressing the Protestants in all parts of the kingdom, and setting up their own religion as in former times; a matter neither to be entertained without strong temptations, nor compassed without stronger forces than they could raise amongst themselves, but by intelligence and supply from some foreign Princes. On which account, amongst some others which were found to be of the plot, Arthur Pole, grandchild of Margaret Countess of Salisbury’ by Geofry her third son, the younger brother unto Reginald Pole, the late Cardinal Legate, was apprehended and arraigned, together with his brother Geofry, Fortescue who had married his sister, and divers others. The substance of their charge — (as it is generally in all treasons) — was, a design of levying a war against the Queen, and otherwise entertaining many dangerous counsels against the peace and safety of her dominions, with a particular intention of advancing the Queen of Scots to the Crown of England, and Pole himself unto the title of Duke of Clarence. All which they confessed upon the indictment, and did all receive the sentence of death; but were all afterwards pardoned by the Queen’s great clemency, out of that great respect which she carried to their royal extraction. 15. And yet it may be possible that there was something in it of state-craft as well as clemency, which might induce the Queen to spare them from the stroke of the axe; which was, to keep them for a balance to the House of Suffolk, of whom she now began to conceive some jealousies. The Lady Katherine Gray, one of the younger daughters of Henry Duke of Suffolk, and sister to the late Queen Jane, had been married to the Lord Henry Herbert, son and heir to the Earl of Pembroke, at such time as the said Queen Jane was married to the Lord Guilford Dudley at Durham-house. But the old Earl, seasonably apprehending how unsafe it was to marry into that family which had given so much trouble to the Queen, took the advantage of the time, and found some means to procure a sentence of divorce, almost upon the very instant of the consummation. And, knowing how well Queen Mary stood affected to the Earl of Shrewsbury, he presently clapped up a marriage for his son with another Katherine, one of the daughters of that Earl, who dying about the beginning of the reign of this Queen, he married him as speedily to Mary Sidney, the daughter of Sir Henry Sidney and of Mary his wife, one of the daughters of John Dudley the late Duke of Northumberland; in which last marriage he as much endeavored to ingratiate himself with Sir Robert Dudley, who at that time began to grow lord paramount in all Court-favors, as by the first match to insinuate into old Duke Dudley, who did then predominate. In the meantime the Lady Katherine Gray languisheth long under the disgrace of this rejection, none daring to make any particular addresses to her, for fear of being involved in the like calamities as had befallen her father and the rest of that family. But at the last the young Earl of Hartford contracts himself privately unto her, and, having consummated the marriage with her, gets leave to travel into France. But long he had not left the kingdom when the Lady was found to be with child, and, being imprisoned in the Tower, she makes known her marriage, till then kept secret by agreement. The Earl is thereupon called home, and, standing honestly to the marriage, for which he could produce no sufficient witness, is committed prisoner also. The Queen, exceeding jealous of all competitors, refers the cognizance of the cause to the Archbishop of Canterbury and some other delegates, by whom a certain time is set for the bringing in of witnesses to prove the marriage, and on default thereof, a sentence of unlawful copulation is pronounced against them; during which troubles and disquiets, the Lady is delivered of the Lord Edward Seimour, her eldest son, in the Tower of London, and conceived after of another by some stolen meetings which she had with the Earl her husband, their keepers on both sides being corrupted to give way unto it. Which practice so incensed the Queen, that, hurried on with jealousy and transported with passion, she caused a fine of five thousand pounds to be set upon him in the Star-Chamber, and kept him dose prisoner for the space of nine years; at the end whereof he was restored to liberty by the death of the Lady, who died a prisoner in the Tower. And though the Lady Frances, Duchess of Suffolk, might hope to have preserved herself from the like Court-thunder-claps by her obscure marriage with Adrian Stokes, who had been Gentleman of the Horse to the Duke her husband, yet neither could that save her from abiding a great part of the tempest, which fell so heavily upon her and all that family, that William, the nephew of this Earl by Edward Viscount Beauchamp, his eldest son, was prudently advised by some of his friends to procure a confirmation of his grandfather’s honors from the hand of King James, which without much difficulty was obtained and granted by his Majesty’s Letters Patents, bearing date the 14th of May in the sixth year of his reign. But such was the fortune of this house, that as this Earl, being newly restored to the title of Hartford by the great goodness of the Queen, incurred her high displeasure, and was thereupon committed prisoner, for his marriage with- the Lady Katherine Gray, the only heir then living of Mary the youngest daughter of King Henry the Seventh, so William above mentioned, being confirmed in the expectancy of his grandfather’s honors by the like goodness of King James, was committed prisoner by that King for marrying with the Lady Arabella, daughter and heir of Charles Earl of Lenox, descended from the eldest daughter of the said King Henry. 16. Such were the principal occurrences of this present year relating to the joint concernments of Church and State. In reference to the Church alone, nothing appears more memorable than the publishing of an elegant and acute discourse, entitled, “The Apology of the Church of England,” — first writ in Latin by the Right Reverend Bishop Jewel; translated presently into English, French, Italian, Dutch, and at last also into Greek; highly approved of by all pious and judicious men, stomached by none excepting our own English fugitives, and yet not undertook by any of them but by Harding only, who had his hands full enough before in beating out an answer to the Bishop’s Challenge. By him we are informed (if we may believe him) that two tractates or discourses had been writ against it, — the one by an Italian in the tongue of that country, the other in Latin by a Spanish Bishop of the realm of Naples; both finished, and both stopped as they went to the press, out of a due regard, forsooth, to the Church of England, whose honor had been deeply touched, by being thought to have approved such a lying, unreasonable, slanderous, and ungodly pamphlet: which were it true, the Church was more beholden to the modesty of those Spaniards and Italians than to our own natural English. But whether it were true or not, or rather how untrue it is in all particulars, the exchange of writings on both sides doth most plainly manifest. In general it was objected, “That the Apology was published in the name of the Church of England, before any mean part of the Church were privy to it, as if the author either were ashamed of it or afraid to stand to it; that the inscription of it neither was directed to the Pope nor Emperor, nor to any Prince, nor to the Church, nor to the General Council then in being, as it should have been; that, there was no man’s name set to it; that it was printed without the privilege of the Prince, contrary to the law in that behalf; that it was allowed neither by parliament nor proclamation, nor agreed upon by the Clergy in a public and lawful synod, and therefore that the book was to be accounted a famous libel and a scandalous writing.” 17. To which it was answered in like generals by that learned prelate, “That the profession of the doctrine contained in it was offered unto the whole Church of God, and so unto the Pope and Council too, if they were any part or member of the Church; that if names be so necessary, he had the names of the whole Clergy of England to confirm that doctrine, and Harding’s too amongst the rest in the time of King Edward; that for not having the Prince’s privilege, it might easily be disproved by’ the printer; that it was not conceived in such a dark corner as was objected, being afterwards imprinted at Paris in Latin, and having been since translated into the French, Italian, Dutch, and Spanish tongues; that, being sent afterwards into France, Flanders, Germany, Spain, Poland, Hungary, Denmark, Sweden, Scotland, Italy, Naples, and Rome itself, it was tendered to the judgment of the whole Church of God; that it was read and seriously considered of in the convent of Trent, and great threats made that it should be answered, and the matter taken in hand by two notable learned Bishops, the one a Spaniard, and the other an Italian, though in fine neither of them did anything in it; and finally, that certain of the English Papists had been nibbling at it, but such as cared neither what they writ, nor was cared by others.” And so much may suffice in general for this excellent piece, to the publishing whereof that learned prelate was most encouraged by Peter Martyr, (as appears by Martyr’s letter of the 24th of August) with whom he had spent the greatest part of his time when he lived in exile; and happy had it been for the Church of England if he had never done worse offices to it than by dealing with that reverend Bishop to so good a purpose. But Martyr only lived to see the book which he so much longed for, — dying at Zurick on the 12th day of November following, and laid into his grave by the magistrates and people of that town with a solemn funeral. 18. Nothing remains for the concluding of this year, but to declare how the three vacant Bishoprics were disposed of; if those may say to be disposed of which were still kept vacant. Glocester was only filled this year by the preferment of Mr Richard Cheny, Archdeacon of Hereford, and one of the Prebendaries of the Collegiate Church of St Peter in Westminster, who received his episcopal consecration on the 19th of April. Together with the See of Glocester, he held that of Bristol in commendam, as did also Bullingham, his successor; that is to say, the jurisdiction, with the profits and fees thereof, to be exercised and enjoyed by them, but the temporal revenue of it to continue in the hands of some hungry courtiers, who gnawed it to the very bone; in which condition it remained under the two Bishops, till the year 1589, when the Queen was pleased to bestow the remainders of it, together with the title of Bishop, on Doctor Richard Fletcher, Dean of Peterborough, whom afterwards she preferred, to the See of London. And as for Oxon, it was kept vacant from the death of King, the first Bishop of it, who died on the 4th of December 1557, till the 14th of October 1567, at which time it was conferred on Dr Hugh Curwyn, Archbishop of Dublin and Chancellor of the realm of Ireland; who having held it but a year, it was again kept vacant twenty years together, and then bestowed on Dr John Underhill, who was consecrated Bishop thereof in December 1589; but he dying also shortly after, viz., anno 1592, it was once more kept void till the year 1603, and then took up by Dr John Bridges, Dean of Salisbury, rather to satisfy the desires of others than his own ambition. So that upon the point, this Church was filled but little more than three years in forty-six. The jurisdiction of it was in the mean time managed by some officers thereunto authorized by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the patrimony and revenues of it remaining in the hands of the Earl of Leicester, and after his decease, of the Earl of Essex, by whom the lands thereof were so spoiled and wasted, that they left nothing to the last Bishops but impropriations; by means of which havoc and destruction, all the five Bishoprics erected by King Henry the Eighth were so impoverished and destroyed, that the new Bishops were necessitated to require the benevolence of their Clergy at their first coming to them, to furnish their episcopal houses, and to enable them to maintain some tolerable degree of hospitality in their several dioceses; of which we shall hear more hereafter from the pen of an adversary. ANNO REGNI ELIZ. 5.

ANNO DOM. 1562, 1563. 1. THE last year’s practices of the Papists, and the dangers thereby threatening both the Queen and State, occasioned her to call a Parliament on the 12th of January, in which first passed an Act, “For assurance of the Queen’s royal power over all estates and subjects within her dominions.” In the body whereof it was provided, “That no man living or residing in the Queen’s dominions, under the pains and penalties therein appointed, should from thenceforth, either by word or writing or any other open deed, willingly and advisedly endeavor to maintain the power and jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome, heretofore claimed and usurped within this realm.”

And for the better discovery of all such persons as might be popishly affected, it was enacted, “That none should be admitted unto holy orders, or to any degree in either of the Universities, or to be barrister or bencher in any of the Inns of Court, etc., or to practice as an attorney, or otherwise to bear any office in any of the Courts at Westminster Hall, or any other Court whatsoever, till he or they should first take the Oath of Supremacy on the holy Evangelists;” with a power given to every Archbishop and Bishop within this realm and the dominions of the same, “to tender or minister the oath aforesaid to all and every spiritual person in their proper dioceses, as well in places exempt as elsewhere.” Of which last clause the reader is to take especial notice, because of the great controversy which ensued upon it, of which more hereafter. And because many of the Popish party had lately busied themselves by conjurations, and other diabolical arts, to inquire into the length or shortness of her Majesty’s life, and thereupon had caused some dark and doubtful prophecies to be spread abroad, there passed two other Statutes for suppressing the like dangerous practices, by which her Majesty’s person might be endangered, the people stirred to rebellion, or the peace otherwise disturbed. For which consult the Acts of Parliament, 5 Eliz. c. 15, 16. By which three acts, and one more for the better executing of the writ de excommunicato capiendo, the Queen provided very well for her own security, but more provoked the Pope and his adherents to conspire against her in the time to come; against whose machinations, backed by the power and counsels of foreign Princes, nothing was more conductible than her strength at sea; for the increase whereof, and the continual breeding of a seminary of expert mariners, an Act was made for adding Wednesday to the number of the weekly fasts, which from thenceforth was called Jejunium Cecilianum, as being one of the devices of Sir William Cecil. 2. In reference to religion, and the advancement of the service and worship of God, it had been declared by the Bishops and Clergy, assembled at the same time in their Convocation, to be “a thing plainly repugnant to the word of God and the custom of the primitive Church, to have public prayer in the Church, or to minister the Sacraments, in a tongue not understood by the people.” To comply with which pious declaration, and take off all reiteration which possibly might be made by those of Rome, when they were charged with the administration of the service and Sacraments in an unknown tongue, it was enacted, “That the Bishops of Hereford, St David’s, Bangor, Landaff, and St Asaph, should take care amongst them for translating the whole Bible with the Common Prayer Book into the Welsh or British tongue, on pain of forfeiting 40l. apiece in default thereof.” And to encourage them thereunto it was ordered, “That one book of either sort, being so translated and imprinted, should be provided and bought of every cathedral or parish-church, as also for all parish-churches and chapels of ease where the said tongue is commonly used; — the Ministers to pay one half of the price, and the parishioners the other.” The like care was also taken for translating the books of Homilies; but whether it were done by any new order from the Queen, or the piety of the four Welsh Bishops, or that they were considered as a necessary part of the public liturgy, by reason of the rubric at the end of the Nicene creed, I have no where found. 3. As for the Convocation which accompanied the present Parliament, it began on the 13th day of January in the Cathedral of St Paul:. — the Latin sermon preached by Mr. William Day, then Provost of Eaton College, afterwards Dean of Windsor also, and Bishop of Winchester; which being finished, the Bishop of London presents a list of the several Bishops, Deans, and Chapters, which had been cited to appear; the catalogue of the Bishops ending with Gabriel Goodman, Dean of Westminster, that of the Deans beginning on another the with Alexander Nowel, Dean of St Paul’s, elected by the Clergy for their Prolocutor. The Convocation after this is adjourned to Westminster for the conveniency of the Prelates, by reason of their attendance on affairs of Parliament. Goodman, the Dean of Westminster, had made his protestation in the Church of St Paul, that, by appearing as a member of the Convocation. by virtue of the Archbishop’s mandate, he subjected not himself nor the Church of Westminster to the authority or jurisdiction of the See of Canterbury; and now, on the Archbishop’s personal coming to the Church of Westminster, he delivers the like protestation in writing for preserving the liberties of the Church: in which it was declared, according to the privilege and just rights thereof, that no Archbishop or Bishop could exercise any ecclesiastical jurisdiction in it, without leave of the Dean for the time then being; and therefore that he could not consent to the holding of a Convocation in that place, without some declaration to be made by the Archbishops and Bishops, that their holding the Convocation in the same should not be taken or intended for any violation of the rights and privileges that belonged unto it; which was accordingly performed. 4. It was on the 19th day of January that these formalities were transacted; at what time the Archbishops and Bishops, having first had some secret communication amongst themselves about the Articles of Religion established in King Edward’s time, required the Prolocutor and six others of the lower house of Convocation to repair unto them; by whom it was signified unto their Lordships, that some of the Clergy had prepared certain bills containing a specification of such matters as were conceived to be amiss in the state of the Church, and that the Articles of Religion agreed upon in the reign of King Edward the Sixth had been delivered unto others to be considered of, corrected, and accommodated, as they found it necessary. Being encouraged in the last, and furthered by the diligence of some of the Bishops who were employed in the same work, the Articles were agreed upon, publicly read before the Bishops in the Chapter-house of Saint Paul, on the 29th of the same month, and by all of them subscribed with great unanimity. The Prelates had observed some deviation from the doctrine of King Edward’s reign which had been made by the Calvinian or Zuinglian gospellers, in the articles of Predestination, Grace, Free-will, and final Perseverance: nor could they but take notice with how little reverence the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was administered, and the authority of the Church despised, by too many of the same party also; which they were willing to impute to the want of some known rule amongst them, by which they were to regulate their judgments and conform their actions. To which end it was thought expedient, that the Book of Articles agreed upon in Convocation, anno 1552, should be revised and accommodated to the use of the Church, the Queen’s leave being first obtained for their warrant in it. In the managing of which great business, I know not whether I should more admire their moderation or their wisdom: — their wisdom eminent, in not suffering any outlandish divine who might drive on a different interess from that of the Church, either to vote amongst them, or carry any stroke in their consultations; their moderation no less visible, in declining all unnecessary determinations, which rather tended to the multiplying of controversies and engendering strifes than either unto edification or increase of piety. So that they seemed to have proceeded by those very rules which King James so much approved of in the conference at Hampton Court: — first, in not separating further from the Church of Rome, in points of discipline or doctrine, than that Church had separated from what she was in her purest times; secondly, in not stuffing the Book of Articles with all conclusions theological, in which a latitude of judgment was to be allowed, as far as it might be consistent with peace and charity; and thirdly, in not thrusting into it every opinion or position negative, which might have made it somewhat like Mr Craige’s confession in the Kirk of Scotland, “who with his I renounce, and I abhor, his detestations and abrenunciations, did so amaze the simple people” (as the King observeth) “that [they], not being able to conceive or understand all those points, utterly gave over all, and fell back to Popery, or else remained in their former ignorance.” Upon which grounds, as they omitted many whole articles, and qualified the expressions of some others in King Edward’s Book; so were they generally very sparing in defining any thing which was merely matter of modality, or de modo only: as namely, touching the manner of Christ’s presence in the holy Eucharist, the manner of effecting grace by the blessed Sacraments, or of the operation of God’s grace in a man’s conversion.

Which. rules being carefully observed by all the Bishops, on whose authority and consent the greatest part of the whole work did seem to rest, and all particulars agreed upon amongst themselves, it was no wonder if they passed their votes without contradiction. 5. But in taking the subscriptions of the Lower House there appeared more difficulty. For, though they all testified their consent unto them, on the said 29th of January, either by words express or by saying nothing to the contrary, which came all to one, — yet when subscription was required, many of the Calvinians or Zuinglian gospellers, possibly some also which inclined rather to their old religion, and who found themselves unsatisfied in some particulars, had demurred upon it. With this demur their Lordships are acquainted by the Prolocutor, on the 5th of February. By whom their Lordships were desired, in the name of that house, that such who had hitherto subscribed the Articles might be ordered to subscribe in their own proper house, or in the presence of their Lordships. Which request being easily granted, drew on the subscription of some others, but so that many still remained in their first unwillingness. An order thereupon is made by their Lordships, on the 10th then following, that the Prolocutor should return the names of all such persons who refused subscription, to the end that such further course might be taken with them as to their Lordships should seem most fit. After which we hear no news of the like complaints and information’s; which makes it. probable (if not concluded) that they all subscribed. And being thus subscribed by all, they were soon after published both in English and Latin, with this following title, that is to say, “Articles agreed upon by the Archbishops and Bishops of both Provinces and the whole Clergy, in the Convocation holden at London in the year 1562, for the avoiding of diversities of opinions, and establishing consent touching true religion.” But what they were, and wherein they agreed or differed with or from those established by King Edward the Sixth, shall be referred (for the avoiding of all interruptions in the course of this History) to a place more proper. Nothing else brought to a conclusion by them, but the Bill of Subsidy, which, having passed that house, was confirmed in Parliament. 6. Nothing else brought unto conclusion, though many things were had in deliberation. On Friday, the 5th of February, the Bishops of Salisbury, Exon, St David’s and Litchfield were appointed by the rest of the Prelates to examine a Catechism which it seems was presented to them. But being by them remitted to the consideration of the Lower House, they were advertised by Day and Sampson, on the 3rd of March, that the said house unanimously had approved thereof. And there it rested for that time, and for ever after, nothing being done in confirmation of it as a public doctrine, (by whomsoever it was written), nor any further speech made of it in the tim e succeeding. Which fortune also happened to a Book of Discipline, projected amongst some of the Clergy, and tendered to the Bishops by the Prolocutor and ten others of that house, on the g6th of February. To which some additionals being made by the first contrivers, it was a second time tendered to them by the Prolocutor, in the name of the Lower House of Convocation, by whom it had been generally and unanimously recommended to them. But the Bishops let this sleep also as they did the other. More was it to the profit of the Clergy generally, to make inquiry into certain Articles, which by the Archbishop, with the consent of all the rest of the Prelates, were delivered in writing. The tenor of which Articles was, 1. “Whether if the writ of Melius inquirendum be sent forth, there be any likelihood that it will return to the Queen’s profit? 2. Whether some benefices ratable be not less than they be already valued? 3. That they inquire of the manner of dilapidation’s and other spoliation’s that they can remember to have passed upon their livings, and by whom. 4. To signify how they have been used for the levying of the arrearages of tenths and subsidies, and for how many years past. 5. As also how many benefices they find that are charged with pensions newly imposed to discharge the pensions of religious persons. 6. And lastly, to certify how many benefices are vacant in every Diocese.”

But what return was made upon these inquiries, I find as little in the Acts of this Convocation, as either in allowance of the Catechism or the Book of Discipline. 7. Religion and the State being thus fortified and secured in England, it will not be amiss to see what they do in Scotland; where the young Queen was graciously inclined to forget all injuries, and grant more liberty to her subjects, in the free exercising and enjoying of their own persuasions, than she could gain unto herself. For in a Parliament. held in May, within few’ months after the end of that in England, the Act for oblivion, formerly condescended to in the treaty at Eden-borough, was confirmed and ratified; but without reference to that treaty, the results whereof the Queen by no means would acknowledge to be good and valid. And thereupon it was advised that the Lords should supplicate on their knees in the house of Parliament for the passing of it; which was accordingly performed by them, and vouchsafed by her. There also passed some other Acts of great advantage to the Church, as affairs then stood; that is to say, an Act for the repairing and upholding of parish-churches, and the church-yards of the same, for burial of the dead. Another, against letting parsonages, glebes, or houses, into long leases or fee. But this came somewhat of the latest, — a great part of the tithes, houses, and possessions Which belonged to the Church having been formerly aliened or demised for a very long term by the popish Clergy, when they perceived they were not likely to enjoy them longer for themselves. But on the other side, no safety or protection could be found for her own religion; no, not so much as in the chapel-royal, or the regal city. In contempt whereof, a force was violently committed in the month of August, in the chapel of the palace of Holy Rood House, (the Whitehal of Edenborough), where certain of the Queen’s servants were assembled for their own devotions; the doors broke open, some of the company haled to the next prison, and the rest dispersed, — the priest escaping with much difficulty by a private passage. The Queen was then absent in the North, but questioned Knox at her return as the cause of the uproar. By which expostulation she got nothing from that fiery spirit but neglect and scorn. 8. Return we back again to France, where we find some alternations of affairs between the French King and the Reingrave on the one side, the English and confederate Princes on the other, but so that fortune seemed most favorable to the English party. The church of Hattivil (a neighboring village to Newhaven) taken and garrisoned by the Reingrave, but presently abandoned, and repossessed by the English. The castle of Tankervile cunningly taken by the English, and soon after regained by the Reingrave. The city and castle of Cane held with a strong garrison by the Marquess d’Elbeuffe, and besieged by the confederate forces, both French and English, and finally surrendered to the Admiral Chastilion, to the use of the Princes, March the 2nd. After which followed the surrendry of Bayeulx, Faleise, Saint Lods, and divers other towns and castles. The town of Hareflew on the Seine gallantly taken by the help of the English of Newhaven, on the 10th, and garrisoned by such soldiers and inhabitants as were sent from thence. Which fortunate successes so amazed the heads of the Guisian faction, that they agreed unto an edict of pacification, by which the French Princes were restored to the King’s favor, the Hugonots to the free exercise of their own religion, and all things settled for the present to their full contentment. But they must buy this happiness by betraying the English whom they bad brought into the country, and join their forces with the rest to drive them out of Newhaven, if they would not yield it on demand. Of this the Queen had secret notice, and offereth by Throgmorton to deliver up Newhaven in exchange for Calais. The French resolve to hold the one and recover the other; so that new forces are sent over to make good the town. The French draw toward it in great numbers, under the conduct of the Marshals of Brissack and Mont Morency; followed not long after by the Constable himself, with many other French Lords of the highest quality. The siege grows close, and the service very hot on both sides: but the English had a fiercer enemy within the town than any whom they found without. The pestilence had got in amongst them, and raged so terribly for the time, that the living were scarce able to bury the dead. And, to complete the miseries of the besieged, the Prince of Conde and the Duke of Montpensier showed themselves openly amongst the rest in the camp of the enemies, that the last act of the tragedy might be played in their presence. All things conspiring thus against them, the English are necessitated to a capitulation, by which they left the town behind them on the 29th of July, but carried the plague with them into England. Which might by some be looked on as an argument of God’s displeasure on this nation, for giving aid unto the rebels of a Christian Prince, though masked with the vizard of religion. 9. Pass we on further towards Trent, where we find the Fathers in high displeasure against Queen Elizabeth; — exasperated by her aiding the French Hugonots against their King, but more for passing the Statute above mentioned, for punishing all those that countenanced and maintained the Pope’s authority within her dominions. The Pope hereby so much incensed, that he dispatched a commission to the Fathers of Trent, to proceed to an excommunication of the Queen of England. The Emperor had his aims upon her, being at that time solicitous for effecting a marriage betwixt her and Charles of Inspruch, his second son; of which his ministers entertained him with no doubtful hopes. In contemplation of which marriage, on the first notice which was given him of this secret purpose, he writ letters both to the Pope and to the Legates: in which he signified unto them, that if the Council would not yield that fruit which was desired, that they might see an union of all Catholics to reform the Church, at least they should not give occasion to the heretics to unite themselves more, which certainly they would do, in case they proceeded so against the Queen of England; by means whereof they would undoubtedly make a league against the Catholics, which must needs bring forth many great inconveniences. Nor did this admonition, coming from a person of so great authority, and built on such prudential reasons, want its good effect: insomuch that both the Pope desisted at Rome, and revoked the commission sent before to the Legates in Trent. 10. But the ministers of the King of Spain would not so give over, — the Archbishop of Otrante in the realm of Naples, keeping the game on foot when the rest had left it. And because he thought the proposition would not take, if it were made only in relation to the Queen of England, he proposed a general anathematizing of the heretics, as well dead as living, Luther and Zuinglius and the rest; which he affirmed to be the practice of all Councils in the primitive times, and that otherwise it might be said that the Council had labored all this while in vain. To which it was replied by one of the Legates, that “divers times required different counsels; that the differences about religion in those elder times were between the Bishops and the priests; that the people were but as an accessory; that the grandees either did not meddle, or, if they did adhere to any heresy, they did not make themselves heads and leaders. But now all was quite contrary; for now the heretic ministers and preachers could not be said to be heads of the sects, but the Princes rather, to whose interess their ministers and preachers did accommodate themselves; that he that would name the true heads of heretics, must name the Queens of England and Navarr, the Prince of Conde, the Elector Palatine of the Reine, the Elector of Saxonie, and many other Dukes and Princes of Germany; that this would make them unite, and show they were sensible of it; and that the condemnation of Luther and Zuinglius only would so provoke them that some great confusion would certainly arise; and therefore they must not do what they would, but what they could, seeing that the more moderate resolution was the better.” After which grave and prudent answer, it was not long before the conclusion of the Council (which ended on the 3rd of December) had put an end to all those practices and designs, which otherwise might have much distracted the peace of Christendom, and more particularly the tranquillity of the realm of England. And so I take my leave of the Council of Trent, without making any other character or censure of it than that which is given by the historian: that is to say, — “That, being desired and procured by godly men to reunite the Church which then began to be divided, it so established the schism, and made the party so obstinate, that the discords are become irreconcilable; that, being managed by Princes for the reformation of Ecclesiastical discipline, it caused the greatest deformation that ever was since Christianity began; that, being hoped for by the Bishops, to regain the episcopal authority, usurped for the most part by the Pope, it made them lose it altogether, and brought them into a greater servitude; and on the contrary, that, being feared and avoided by the See of Rome, as a potent means to moderate the exorbitant power of the Pope, mounted from small beginnings by divers degrees unto an unlimited excess, it hath so established and confirmed the same over that part which remaineth subject to it, that it never was so great, nor so soundly rooted.” ANNO REGNI ELIZ. 6, ANNO DOM. 1563, 1564. 1. HAVING dispatched our business in France and Trent, we shall confine ourselves for so much of our story as is to come to the Isles of Britain. In the South part thereof, the plague brought out. of France by the garrison soldiers of Newhaven had so dispersed itself, and made such desolation in many parts of the realm, that it swept away above 20,000 in the city of London; which, though it seemed less than ‘some great plagues which have happened since, yet was it the greatest at that time which any man living could remember. In which regard as Michaelmas term was not kept at all, so Candlemas term then following was kept at Hartford, the houses in London being not well cleansed, nor the air sufficiently corrected for so great a concourse. Under pretense whereof the Council of the King of Spain residing in Brussels commanded proclamation to be made in Antwerp and other places, that no English ship with cloths should come into any ports of the Low Countries. Besides which, they alleged some other causes, as namely, the raising of impost upon goods, as well inwards as outwards, as well upon Englishmen as upon strangers etc. But the true reason of it was, because a statute had been passed in the first year of the Queen, by which divers wares and commodities were forbidden to be brought into this realm out of Flanders and other places, (being the manufactures of those countries,) to the end that our own people might be set on work; as also that no English or stranger might ship out any white cloths undressed, being of price above 4l ., without special license. But at the earnest suit of the merchant-adventurers, the Queen prohibited the transporting of wool unwrought, and the cloth-fleet was sent to Embden, the principal city in East Friezland, about Easter following, where it was joyfully received, and where the English kept their factory for some years after. And though the Hanse Towns made such friends in the court of the Emperor that the English trade was interdicted under the pretense of being a monopoly, yet by the constancy of the Queen, the courage of the merchants, and the dexterity of their agents, they prevailed at last, and carried on the trade themselves, without any competitors. 2. The apprehension of this dealing from the Council of Spain induced the Queen to hearken the more willingly to a peace with France; which she concluded upon terms of as good advantage as the times would bear; the demand for Calais being waived till the eight years’ end, at which it was to be restored unto her by the treaty of Cambray: which peace was first proclaimed before her Majesty in the Castle of Windsor, the French Embassador being present; and afterwards at London on the 13th of April. And for creating the greater confidence and amity between both Princes, it was not long before she sent the Lord Henry Hunsdon, accompanied with the Lord Strange, and divers knights and gentlemen, to the Court of France, to present that King with the collar and habit of the Garter, into which noble order he had been elected at a general Chapter.

Garter the king-at-arms was also sent along with them, to invest him in it with all the ceremonies and solemnities thereunto belonging, to make it the more acceptable in the sight of that people. But notwithstanding these courses on the one side, and the indignities put upon her by the Hugonot Princes on the other, reason of state prevailed with her not to lay aside the care of their safety and affairs. For well she knew, that, if the Hugonots were not encouraged under hand, and the Guisian faction kept in breath by their frequent stirrings, they would be either hammering some design against her in her own dominions, or animate the Queen of Scots to stand to her title and pretensions for the Crown of England. Upon which general ground of self-preservation, as she first aided those of Scotland for the expelling of the French, and the French Protestants from being ruined and oppressed by the house of Guise; so on the same she afterwards undertook the patronage of the Belgic Netherlands against the tyranny and ambition of the Duke of Alva, who otherwise might have brought the war to her own doors, and hazarded the peace and safety of her whole estate. 3. Having secured herself by this peace with France, and being at no open enmity with the King of Spain, she resolves to give herself some pleasure, and thereupon prepareth for her summer’s progress. In the course whereof she bestowed a visit upon Cambridge on the 5th of August, where she was honorably received by Mr Secretary Cecil, being then Chancellor of that University, together with all the Heads of Houses and other students, attired in their academical habits, according to their several and distinct degrees. Her lodging was provided in King’s College; the days of her abode there spent in scholastical exercises of philosophy, physic, and divinity; the nights in comedies and tragedies, and other pleasing entertainment’s. On Wednesday the 7th of the same month she rode through the town, and took a view of all the Colleges and Halls — the goodly monuments of the piety of her predecessors, and of so many men and women famous in their generations. Which done, she took leave of Cambridge in a Latin oration, in which she gave them great encouragement to pursue their studies; not without giving them some hopes, that, if God spared her life and opportunity, she would erect some monument amongst them of her love to learning, which should not be inferior unto any of her royal ancestors. In which diversion she received such high contentment, that nothing could have seemed to be equal to it but the like at Oxon, where she was entertained about two years after for seven days together, with the same variety of speeches, interludes, disputations, and other academical expressions of a public joy. In one point, that of Oxford seemed to have the pre-eminence, all things being there both given and taken with so even an hand, that there could be no ground for any emulation, strife, or discord to ensue upon it. But in the midst of those contentment’s which she had at Cambridge were sown the seeds of those divisions and combustion’s with which the Church hath been continually distracted to this very day. For so it happened, that Mr Thomas Preston of King’s College, and Mr Thomas Cartwright of Trinity College, were appointed for two of the opponents in a disputation; in which the first, by reason of his comely gesture, pleasing pronunciation, and graceful personage, was both liked and rewarded by her, the other receiving neither reward or commendation; which so incensed the proud man, too much opinionated of himself and his own abilities, that he retired unto Geneva, where, having thoroughly informed himself in all particulars, both of doctrine and discipline, wherein the Churches of that platform differed from the Church of England, he returned home with an intent to repair his credit, or rather to get himself a name, (as did Erostratus in the burning of Diana’s temple) by raising such a fire, such combustion’s in her, as never were to be extinguished (like the fire of Tabcrab) but by the immediate hand of heaven. 4. The Genevians had already began to blow the coals, and brought fuel to them, but it was only for the burning of caps and rochets. The Common Prayer-Book was so fortified by Act of Parliament, that there was no assaulting of it without greater danger than they durst draw upon themselves. And as for the Episcopal Government, it was so interwoven and incorporated with the laws of the land, so twisted in with the prerogative of the Crown and the regal interess, that they must first be in a capacity of trampling on the laws and the Crown together, before they could attempt the destruction of it. But caps and tippets, rochets and lawn sleeves and canonical coats, seemed to be built upon no better foundation than superstitious custom, some old Popish canon, or at the best some temporary injunction of the Queen’s devising, which could not have the power and effect of law. This game they had in chase in King Edward’s time, which now they are resolved to follow both with horn and hound, and hunt it to the very last: but as good huntsmen as they were, the came off with loss, — they that sped best in it being torn by the briers and bushes through which the fury of their passion carried them in pursuit of the sport.

Amongst which, none sped worse than Sampson, because none had so much to lose in the prosecution; for resting obstinate in refusing to wear that habit which of right belonged unto his place, he was deprived of that place, by the High Commissioners, to which the habit did belong. So eminent a preferment as the Deanery of Christ Church deserved a man of a better temper, and of a more exemplary conformity to the rules of the Church; both which were found in Dr Thomas Godwin, Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen, advanced unto this Deanery first, and after to the Bishopric of Bath and Wells; more fortunate in being father to Dr Francis Godwin, a late Bishop of Hereford, never to be forgotten for his Commentaries of the English Bishops, digested with such infinite pains, and no less ingenuity. 5. The obstinacy of these men in matter of ceremony prompted the Bishops to make trial of their orthodoxy in points of doctrine. The Articles of Religion, lately agreed upon in Convocation, had been subscribed by all the Clergy who had voted to them, — subscribed not only for themselves, but in the name of all those in the several dioceses and cathedral churches whom they represented. But the Bishops, not thinking that sufficient to secure the Church, required subscription of the rest in their several places, threatening no less than deprivation to such as willfully refused and obstinately persisted in that refusal. Many there were who boggled at it, but did it not so perversely, nor in such great numbers, as when their faction was grown strong and improved to multitudes. Some stumbled at it in regard of the first clause added to the twentieth Article, about the authority of the Church, others in reference to the thirty-sixth, touching the consecration of Archbishops and Bishops; some thought they attributed more authority to the Supreme Magistrate over all persons and causes, both ecclesiastical and civil, than could consist with that autocracy and independency which Calvin arrogated unto his presbyteries and other churches of that platform; and others looked upon the Homilies as beggarly rudiments, scarce milk for babes, but by no means to be served in for a stronger stomach. In genera], thought by the Genevians and Zuinglian gospellers to have too much in them of the Pope, or too little of Calvin, and therefore not to be subscribed by any who desired the reputation of keeping a good conscience with faith unfeigned. Of which number none so much remarkable as Father John Box, the martyrologist, who had before appeared in the schism at Franckfort, and left that church, (when Cox had got the better in it), to retire to Geneva. Being now called on to subscribe, that the opinion which was had of his parts and piety might advance the service, he is said to have appeared before the Bishop (but whether before the Archbishop or his own diocesan is not much material) with the New Testament in Greek, — “To this” (said he) “I will subscribe; and if this will not serve, take my prebend of Salisbury, the only preferment which I hold in the Church of England, and much good may it do you. 6. This refractory answer — (for it was no better) — might well have moved the Bishop to proceed against him, as he did against some others who had stood on the same refusal; but kissing goes by kindness, as the saying is, and so much kindness was showed to him that he both kept his resolution and his place together; which whether it might not do more hurt to the Church than that preferment in the Church did advantage him, I think no wise man will make a question; for commonly the exemption or indemnity of some few particulars confirms the obstinacy of the rest, in hope of being privileged with the like indemnity. And therefore it was well observed by Bishop Bancroft, when King James proposed the writing of a letter to the Bishop of Chester, for respiring some ministers of his diocese from a present conformity, “That if this purpose should proceed, the copy of those letters would fly over the kingdom, and then others would make the same request for some friends of theirs, and so no fruit would follow of the present conference, but that all things would be worse than before they were.” But Queen Elizabeth was not drawn so easily to the like indulgences; for which she received her own just praises from the pen of an adversary, Harding by name, [who], in his Epistle Dedicatory prefixed before his Answer to the Bishop’s Apology, commends her “earnest zeal and travail, in bringing those disordered ministers into stone order of decent apparel, which yet some of them wanted reason to apply themselves to.” And Sanders (who seldom speaks well of her) first informs his reader, “What bickerings there were in England about the rochet, and other vestments of the clergy; that many of the opposite party regarded not the Queen’s judgment in it, but sent for counsel and advice to Germany, France, Savoy, and Switzerland, but specially to Theodore Beza and Peter Martyr; but finally, that, notwithstanding the advice of the one and the addresses of the other, the Queen proceeded vigorously to the deprivation of all such persons as willfully opposed her order made in that behalf.” 7. It seems by this that our Genevians, for the greater: countenancing of their inconformity, had stirred up the most eminent divines of the Gallic and Helvetian churches to declare in favor of their doings. And it appears also, by remembrances in some authors, that Calvin, apprehending some neglect from Mr Secretary Cecil, in making either no return, or a return which signified nothing, to his first addresses, had laid aside his care of the Church of England, for which he could expect no thanks from the Bishops, or had received so little from the great men of the Court. But Peter Martyr, while he lived, conceived himself to have some interess in this Church, in which he had enjoyed such a good preferment, but more in some particular persons and members of it, who seemed to depend upon his judgment, and to ask counsel of him as their surest oracle: in which, how much he countenanced that faction in King Edward’s time both by his practice and his pen, and what encouragement he gave them in this present reign, hath been shown before; how much outgone by Theodore Beza, who next usurped a superintendency over all the churches of this island, may be seen hereafter. All that shall now be said of either of them, or of all together, shall be briefly this, — that this poor Church might better have wanted their best helps in points of doctrine, than have been troubled with their intermeddlings in matter of discipline. More modestly than so dealt Bullinger and Gualter, two divines of Switzerland as eminent in all points of learning as the best amongst them; who, being solicited by some zealous brethren to signify their judgment in the present controversy about the apparel of the clergy, return an approbation of it, but send the same inclosed in several letters to Sandys, Horn, and Grindal, that they might see that neither of them would engage in the affairs of this Church, without the privity of the governors and rulers of it. 8. To bring this quarrel to an end, or otherwise to render all opponents the more inexcusable, the Queen thought fit to make a further signification of her royal pleasure, — not grounded only on the sovereign power and prerogative royal, by which she published her Injunctions in the first year of her reign, but legally declared by her Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical, according to the Acts and Statutes made in that. behalf; for then it was to be presumed, that such as had. denied obedience to her sole commands, would at least give it to the laws. The Archbishop is thereupon required to consult together with such Bishops and Commissioners as were next at hand, upon the making of such rules and orders as they thought necessary for the peace of the Church, with reference to the present condition and estate thereof: which being accordingly performed, presented to the Queen, and by her approved, the said rules and orders were set forth and published in a certain book, entitled, “Advertisements, partly for due order in the public Administration of Common Prayers, and using the holy Sacraments; and partly for the apparel of all persons ecclesiastical, by the virtue of the Queen’s Majesty’s letters commanding the same, the 15th day of January,” etc. And that they might be known to have the stamp of royal authority, a preface was prefixed before them, in which it was expressed, “That the Queen had called to her remembrance how necessary it was for the advancement of God’s glory, etc. for all her loving subjects of the state ecclesiastical, not only to be knit together in the bonds of uniformity touching the ministration of God’s Word and Sacraments, but also to be of one decent behavior of outward apparel, that by their distinct habits they might be known to be of that holy vocation, whereby the greater reverence might be given unto them in their several offices;” that thereupon she “had required the Metropolitan, by her special letters, that, upon conference had with such other Bishops as were authorized by her Commission for Causes Ecclesiastical, some order might be took, whereby all diversities and varieties in the premises might be taken away;” and finally, that, in obedience unto her commands, the said Metropolitan and the rest there named had agreed upon “the rules and orders ensuing, which were by her thought meet to be used and followed.” 9. Now in these Articles or Advertisements, it was particularly enjoined amongst other things, “That all Archbishops and Bishops should continue their accustomed apparel; that all Deans of Cathedral Churches, Masters of Colleges, all Archdeacons and other dignitaries in Cathedral Churches, Doctors, Bachelors of Divinity and Law, having any ecclesiastical living, should wear in their common apparel abroad a side gown with sleeves straight at the hand, without any cut in the same, and that also without any falling cape, and to wear tippets of sarsnet, as was lawful for them by Act of Parliament, 24 Henry VIII.; that all Doctors of Physic or any other faculty having any living ecclesiastical, or any other that may despond by the Church 100 marks, so to be esteemed by the fruits or tenths of their promotions; or all Prebendaries, whose promotions are valued at 20l . and upward, do wear the like habit; that they, or all ecclesiastical persons, or other having any ecclesiastical living, do wear the cap appointed by the Injunctions, and no hats, but in their journeyings; that they in their journeys do wear the cloaks with sleeves put on, and like in fashion to their gowns, without gards, welts, or cuts; that in their private houses or studies they use their own liberty of comely apparel; that all inferior ecclesiastical persons shall wear long gowns of the fashion aforesaid, and caps as before is described; that all poor parsons, vicars, and curates, do endeavor themselves to conform their apparel in like sort, so soon and as conveniently as their abilities will serve for the same; provided that their ability be judged by the Bishop of the diocese; and if their ability will not suffer them to buy them long gowns, of the form afore prescribed, that then they shall wear their short gowns, as before expressed; that all such persons as have been or be ecclesiastical, and serve not the ministry, or have not accepted, or shall refuse to accept, the Oath of Obedience to the Queen’s Majesty, do from henceforth wear none of the said apparel, but to go as mere laymen, till they be reconciled to obedience; and who shall obstinately refuse to do the same, be presented by the Ordinary to the Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical, and by them to be reformed accordingly.” But this belongs more properly to the year next following. 10. To return therefore where we left, . the next considerable action which followed on the Queen’s reception at Cambridge, but more considerable in the consequents than in the act itself, was the preferring of Sir Robert Dudley, the second son then living to the Duke of Northumberland, to the titles of Lord Denbigh and Earl of Leicester; which honor she conferred on him on Michaelmas day, with all the pomps and ceremonies thereunto accustomed. She had before elected him into the Order of the Garter, made him the Master of her Horse and Chancellor of the University of Oxon; suffered him to carry a great sway in all affairs both of Court and Council, and given unto him the fair manor of Denbigh, being conceived to be one of the goodliest territories in England, as having more gentlemen of quality which owes suit and service thereunto than any other whatsoever in the hands of a subject. And now she adds unto these honors the goodly castle and manor of Kenilworth, part of the patrimony and possession of the Duchy of Lancaster. Advanced unto which height, he engrossed unto himself the disposing of all offices in Court and State, and of all preferments in the Church; proving in fine so unappeasable in his malice and unsatiable in his lusts, so sacrilegious in his rapines, so false in promises, and treacherous in point of trust, and finally so destructive of the rights and properties of particular persons, that his little finger lay far heavier on the English subjects than the loins of all the favorites of the two last kings. And that his monstrous vices (most insupportable in any other than himself) might either be connived at, or not complained of, he cloaks them with a seeming zeal to the true religion, and made himself the head of the Puritan faction, who spared no pains in setting forth his praises upon all occasions, making themselves the Tromparts to this Bragadoeio. Nor was he wanting to caress them after such a manner as he found most agreeable to those holy hypocrites, using no other language in his speech and letters than pure Scripture phrase, in which he was become as dexterous as if he had received the same inspirations with the sacred penmen. Of whom I had not spoke so much, but that he seemed to have been born for the destruction of the Church of England, as may appear further in the prosecution of the Presbyterian or Puritan history, whensoever any able pen shall be exercised in it. 11. But leaving this Court-meteor to be gazed on by unknowing men, let us attend the obsequies of the Emperor Ferdinand, who died on the [26th] of [July] in the year now being, leaving the Empire and the rest of his dominions to Maximilian his eldest son, whom he had before made King of the Romans. A Prince he was who had deserved exceeding well of the Queen of England, and she resolved not to be wanting to the due acknowledgment of so great a merit. The afternoon of the second day of October and the forenoon of the third are set apart by her command for this great solemnity, for which there was erected in the upper part of the quire of the said Church a goodly herse, richly garnished and set forth, all the quire being hanged with black cloth, adorned with rich escutcheons of his arms of sundry sorts: at the solemnization of which funeral there were twelve mourners, and one that presented the Queen’s person, which was the Marquess of Winchester, Lord Treasurer of England, the other twelve being two Earls, six Lords, and four Knights; the sacred part thereof performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by the Bishops of London and Rochester; the funeral sermon being preached by the Bishop of London, which tended much unto the praise and commendation of that famous Emperor. By which solemnity, as she did no small honor to the dead, so she gave great contentment to the living also; the people being generally much delighted with such glorious pomps, and the Church of England thereby held in estimation with all foreign Princes. 12. Nothing else memorable in this year but. the coming out of certain books, and the death of Calvin. Dorman, an English fugitive, first publisheth a book for proof of certain of the articles denied in Bishop Jewel’s Challenge; encountered first by Alexander Nowel, Dean of the Cathedral Church of St Paul, who first appeared in print against those of Lovain, and is replied upon by Dorman, in a book entitled, “A Discovery of Mr Nowel’s Untruths,” not published till the year next following. But of more consequence to this Church was the death of Calvin, by whose authority so much disorder and confusion was to be brought upon it in the times succeeding; — a name much reverenced, not only by those of his own party and persuasions, but by many grave and moderate men, who did not look at first into the dangers which ensued upon it. His platform at Geneva made the only pattern by which all reformed Churches were to frame their government; his writings made the only rule by which all students in divinity were to square their judgment. What Peter Lombart was esteemed to be in the schools of Rome, the same was Calvin reckoned in all those Churches which were reformed according to the Zuinglian doctrine in the point of the Sacrament. But, Hic Magister non tenetur, as the saying was, — he was not so esteemed in England, nor was there any reason why it should be so; for, though some zealous brethren of the Presbyterian or Puritan faction appeared exceeding ambitious to wear his livery, and thought no name so honorable as that of Calvinist, yet the sounder members of the Church, the royal and prelatical divines, as the others called them, conceived otherwise of him: and the right learned Adrian Saravia, though by birth a Dutchman, yet, being once preferred in the Church of England, he stomached nothing more than to be called Calvinian.

ANNO REGNI ELIZ. 7, ANNO DOM. 1564, 1565. 1. WE shall begin this year with the concernments of the Kirk of Scotland, where Queen Elizabeth kept a stock still going, the returns whereof redounded more to her own security than to the profit and advantage of the Church of England. The Queen of Scots was young, possessed of that kingdom, and next heir to this; first married to the Daulphin of France, and sued to after his decease in behalf of Charles, the younger son of the Emperor Maximilian, as also of the Prince of Conde and the Duke of Bavaria. But Queen Elizabeth had found so much trouble and danger from her first alliance with the French, that she was against all marriage which might breed the like, or any way advance the power of that competitor; but on the contrary, she commended to her the Earl of Leicester, whom she pretended to have raised to those eminent honors, to make him in some sort capable of a Queen’s affection. Which proposition proved agreeable to neither party, — the Queen of Scots disdaining that unequal offer, and Leicester dealing underhand with Randolph the English resident to keep her still in that averseness. He had foolishly given himself some hopes of marrying with Elizabeth, his own dread mistress, interpreting all her favors to him to proceed from affection, and was not willing that any proposition for that purpose with the Queen of Scots should be entertained. During these various thoughts on both sides, the English began to be divided in opinion concerning the next heir to the Crown Imperial of this realm. One Hales had writ a discourse in favor of the house of Suffolk, but more particularly in defense of the late marriage between the Earl of Hartford and the Lady Katherine, for which he was apprehended and committed prisoner. The Romish party were at the same time subdivided, some standing for the Queen of Scots as the next heirapparent, though an alien born; others for Henry Lord Darnly, eldest son to the Earl of Lenox, — born in the realm, and lineally descended from the eldest daughter of King Henry the Seventh, from whom the Queen of Scots also did derive her claim. 2. The Queen of Scots also at the same time, grown jealous of the practices of the Lord James her bastard-brother, whom she had not long before made Earl of Murrey, and being overpowered by those of the Congregation, was at some loss within herself for finding a fit person, upon whose integrity she might depend in point of counsel, and on whose power she might rely in point of safety. After a long deliberation, nothing seethed more conductible to her ends and purposes than the recalling of Matthew Earl of Lenox to his native country, from whence he had been forced by the Hamiltonians in the time of King Henry. Being of great power in the West of Scotland, from the Kings whereof he was extracted, Henry conceived that some good use might be made of him for advancing the so much desired marriage between his only son Prince Edward and the infant Queen. The more to gain him to his side, he bestows upon him in marriage the Lady Margaret Dowglas, daughter of Queen Margaret his eldest sister, by Archibald Dowglas Earl of Angus, her second husband; of which marriage were born Henry Lord Darnly (of whom more anon) and Charles the second son (whom King James created Earl of Lenox) father of Arabella, before remembered. And that they might support themselves in the nobler equipage, he bestows upon him also the manor of Setrington, with other good lands adjoining, in the county of York, — passing since by the name of Lenox his lands in the style of the people. In England he remained above twenty years, but kept himself constant in all changes to the Church of Rome, which made him the more estimable both with his own Queen and the English Papists. Being returned into his country, he found the Queen so gracious to him, and such a handsome correspondence with the chief nobility, that he sends for his two sons to come thither to him, but leaves his wife behind in the Court of England, lest otherwise Queen Elizabeth might take some umbrage or displeasure at it, if they should all remove at once. 3. It was about the middle of February that the Lord Darnly came to the Court of Scotland; who, being not full twenty years old, of lovely person, sweet behavior, and a most ingenuous disposition, exceedingly prevailed in short time on the Queen’s affections. She had now met with such a man as might please her fancy, and more secure her title to the Crown of England than any of the great Kings in Europe. What then should hinder her from making up a marriage so agreeable to her, so acceptable to the Catholic party in both kingdoms, and which she thought withal of so safe a condition as could create no new jealousies in the breast of Elizabeth? But those of the Leicestrian faction conceived otherwise of it, and had drawn most of the Court and Council to conceive so too. For what could more secure the interess of the Queen of Scots, than to corroborate her own title with that of Darnly? from which two, what children soever should proceed, they would draw to them many hearts in the realm of England, who now stood fair and faithful to their natural Queen. In this great fear (but made much greater of set purpose to create some trouble) it was advised that the Queen should earnestly be entreated to think of marriage, to the end that the succession might be settled in her own posterity; that all Popish justices (whereof there were many at that time) might be put out of commission, and none admitted to that office but such as were sincerely affected to the reformed religion; that the old deprived Bishops, which for the most part lived at liberty, might be brought to a more close restraint, for fear of hardening some in their errors, and corrupting others with whom they had the freedom of conversation; that a greater power might be conferred upon the English Bishops, in the free exercise of their jurisdiction, for suppressing all such Popish books as were sent into England, depriving the English fugitives of all those benefices in this kingdom which hitherto they had retained: and all this to be done without incurring the danger of a proemunire, with which they were so often threatened by the common lawyers. It was advised also, that, for a counterpoise unto the title of the Queen of Scots, some countenance should be given to the house of Suffolk, by showing favor to the Earl of Hartford and the Lady Katherine; and that, to keep the balance even with the Romish Catholics, some moderation should be used to such Protestant ministers — (you may be sure the Earl of Leicester had a hand in this) — as hitherto had been opposite in external matters to the rites and ceremonies of the Church here by law established. 4. Nor was this marriage very pleasing to the Scots themselves. The chief lords of the Romish party, who faithfully had adhered to their natural Queen in all her former troubles, conceived that some of them might be as capable of the Queen’s affections as a young gentleman born in England, and one that never had done any service which might ennoble and prefer him before all the rest. The ministers exclaimed against it in their common preaching, as if it were designed of purpose to destroy religion, and bring them under their old vassalage to the Church of Rome. The noblemen and others of the Congregation, who had sold themselves to Queen Elizabeth, were governed wholly by her counsels, and put themselves into a posture of arms to disturb the match. The Edinburgers do the like, but are quickly scattered and forced to submit themselves to their Queen’s good pleasure, who was so bent upon her marriage with this young nobleman that neither threatenings nor persuasions could divert her from it. And that he might appear in some capacity fit for the marriage of a Queen, she first confers upon him the order of knighthood, and afterwards creates him Baron of Ardamanack, Earl of Rosse, and Duke of Rothsay, which are the ordinary titles of the eldest and second sons of Scotland. In May she had convented the Estates of Scotland, to whom she communicated her intention, with the reasons of it; which by the greatest part of the assembly seemed to be allowed of, none but the Lord Ochiltrie opposing what the rest approved. About the middle of July the marriage rites were celebrated in the Royal Chapel by the Dean of Restalrig, and the next day the new Duke was proclaimed King by sound of trumpet, and declared to be associated with the Queen in the public government. The news whereof being brought unto Queen Elizabeth, she seemed more offended than indeed she was. For well she knew, that both the new King and the Earl his father were men of plain and open natures, not apt to entertain any dangerous counsels to the disturbance of her quiet; that as long as she retained the Countess with her, — (who was the mother of the one, and the wife of the other) — they seemed to stand bound to their good behavior, and durst act nothing to the prejudice of so dear a pledge; that by the precipitation of this marriage, the Queen of Scots had neither fortified herself in the love of her people, nor in alliances abroad; and that it could not otherwise be, but some new troubles must break out in Scotland upon this occasion, by which it would be made uncomfortable and inglorious to her. And so it proved in the event; for never was marriage more calamitous to the parties themselves, or more dishonorable to that nation, or finally more scandalous to both religions; in nothing fortunate but in the birth of James the Sixth, born in the palace of Edenborough on the 19th of July, anno 1566, solemnly crowned King of the Scots on the same day of the month, anno 1567, and joyfully received to the Crown of England, on the 14th of March, anno 1602. 5. In greater glory and felicity reigned the Queen of England, whose praise, resounding in all kingdoms of the North and West, invited Caecille, sister to the King of Sweden, and wife of Christopher, Marquess of Baden, to undertake a tedious journey both by land and sea from the furthest places of the North, to see the splendor of her Court, and observe the prudence of her government. Landing at Dover in the beginning of September, they were there received by the Lord Cobham, with a goodly train of knights and gentlemen; at Canterbury by the Lady Cobham, with the like honorable train of ladies and gentlewomen; at Gravesend by the Lord Hunsdon, with the band of Pensioners; at London, on the 11th of September, by the Earl of Sussex and his Countess, who waited on them to the lodging appointed for them. Scarce had she rested there four days, when she fell into a new travel, of which she was happily delivered by the birth of a son; whom the Queen christened in her own person, by the name of Edwardus Fortunatus, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Duke of Norfolk being sureties with her at the font. She called him Edward, with relation to the king her brother, whose memory she dearly loved; and Fortunatus, in regard that he came so luckily into the world, when his mother, after a most painful pilgrimage, was safely come to pay her devotions at that shrine which she so much honored. Having remained here till the April following, they were dismissed with many rich presents, and an annual pension from the Queen; conducted honorably by the Lord Aburgavenny to the port of Dover, and there shipped for Calais — filling all places in the way betwixt that and Baden with the report of the magnificence of their entertainment in the Court of England. And that the glories of their entertainment might appear the greater, it happened that Rambouillet, a French Embassador, came hither at that time upon two solemnities; — that is to say, to be installed Knight of the Garter in the place and person of that King, and to present the Order of St Michael (the principal Order of that kingdom) to Thomas Duke of Norfolk, and the Earl of Leicester. The one performed with the accustomed pomps and ceremonies in. the Chapel of St George at Windsor, the other with like state and splendor in the Royal Chapel at Whitehall. Such a well-tempered piety did at that time appear in the devotions of the Church of England. that generally the English papists and the Embassadors of foreign princes still resorted to them. 6. But true it is, that at that; time some zealots of the Church of Rome had begun to slacken their attendance, not out of any new dislike which they took at the service, but in regard of a decree set forth in the Council of Trent, prohibiting all resort to the churches of heretics. Which notwithstanding, the far greater part continued in their first obedience, till the coming over of that roaring bull from Pope Pius the Fifth, by which the Queen was excommunicated, the subjects discharged from their obedience to the laws, and the going or not going to the church made a sign distinctive to difference a Roman Catholic from an English Protestant.

And it is possible enough that they might have stood much longer to their first conformity, if the discords brought into the Church by the Zuinglian faction, together with their many innovations both in doctrine and discipline, had not afforded them some further ground for the desertion.

For in this year it was that the Zuinglian or Calvinian faction began to be first known by the name of Puritans, if Genebrard, Gualter, and Spondanus (being all of them right good chronologers) be not mistaken in the time. Which name hath ever since been appropriate to them, because of their pretending to a greater purity in the service of God than was held forth unto them (as they gave it out) in the Common Prayer Book; and to a greater opposition to the rites and usages of the Church of Rome than was agreeable to the constitution of the Church of England. But this purity was accompanied with such irreverence, this opposition drew along with it so much licentiousness, as gave great scandal and offense to all sober men; so that it was high time for those which had the care of the Church to look narrowly unto them, to give a check to those disorders and confusions which by their practices and their preachings they had brought into it, and thereby laid the ground of that woeful schism which soon after followed.

And for a cheek to those disorders, they published the Advertisement[s] before remembered, subscribed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of London, Winchester, Ely, Lincoln, Rochester, and other of her Majesty’s Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical, according to the Statute made in that behalf. 7. This was the only present remedy which could then be thought of. And to prevent the like confusions for the time to come, a Protestation was devised, to be taken by all parsons, vicars, and curates in their several stations, by which they were required to declare and promise, “That they would not preach, nor publicly interpret, but only read that which is appointed by public authority, without special license of the Bishop under his seal; that they would read the service plainly, distinctly, and audibly, that all the people might hear and understand; that they would keep the register book according to the Queen’s Majesty’s Injunctions; that they would use sobriety in apparel, and especially in the Church at Common Prayers, according to order appointed; that they would move the parishioners to quiet and concord, and not give them cause of offense; and help to reconcile them that be at variance, to their utmost power; that they would read daily at the least one chapter of the Old Testament, and another of the New, with good advisement, to the increase of their knowledge; that they would in their own persons use and exercise their office and place to the honor of God and the quiet of the Queen’s subjects within their charge, in truth, concord and unity; as also observe, keep, and maintain such order and uniformity in all external policy, rites and ceremonies of the Church, as by the laws, good usages and orders, are already well provided and established;” and finally, “that they would not openly meddle with any artificers’ occupations, as covetously to seek a gain thereby, having in ecclesiastical livings twenty nobles or above by the year.” Which protestation, if it either had been generally pressed upon all the clergy (as perhaps it was not), or better kept by them that took it, the Church might questionless have been saved from those distractions which by the Puritan innovators were occasioned in it.

ANNO REG. ELIZ. 8, ANNO DOM. 1565, 1566. 1. THUS have we seen the public Liturgy confirmed in Parliament, with divers penalties on all those who either did reproach it, or neglect to use it, or willfully withdrew their attendance from it; the doctrine of the Church declared in the Book of Articles, agreed upon in Convocation, and ratified in due form of law by the Queen’s authority; external matters, in officiating God’s public service and the apparel of the Clergy, regulated and reduced to their first condition, by the books of Orders and Advertisements.

Nothing remaineth but that we settle the episcopal government, and then it will be time to conclude this History. And for the settling of this government by as good authority as could be given unto it by the laws of the land, we are beholden to the obstinacy of Dr Edward Bonner, the late great slaughterman of London. By a Statute made in the last Parliament, for keeping her Majesty’s subjects in their due obedience, a power was given unto the Bishops to tender and receive the Oath of Supremacy of all manner of persons dwelling and residing in their several dioceses. Bonner was then prisoner in the Clink or Marshalsea, which being in the Borough of Southwark, brought him within the jurisdiction of Horn, Bishop of Winchester, by whose Chancellor the oath was tendered to him. On the refusal of which oath he is indicted at the King’s Bench upon the Statute; to which he appeared in some term of the year foregoing, and desires that counsel be assigned to plead his cause, according to the course of the court. The court assigns him no worse men than Christopher Wray, afterwards Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas; that famous lawyer Edmond Ploydon, whose learned Commentaries do sufficiently set forth his great abilities in that profession; and one Mr Lovelace, of whom we find nothing but the name. 2. By them and their advice the whole pleading chiefly is reduced to these two heads, — (to omit the niceties and punctilios of lesser moment);. — the first whereof was this, — That Bonner was not at all named in the indictment by the style and title of Bishop of London, but only by the name Dr Edmond Bonner, clerk, Dr of the Laws, whereas at that time he was legally and actually Bishop of London, and therefore the writ to be shared, (as our lawyers phrase it) and the cause to be dismissed out of the court.

But Ploydon found here that the case was altered, and that this plea could neither be allowed by Catiline, who was then Chief Justice, nor by any other of the bench, and therefore it is noted by Chief Justice Dyer, who reports the case, with a non allocatur. The second principal plea was this, — That Horn, at the time when the oath was tendered, was not Bishop of Winchester, and therefore not empowered by the said Statute to make tender of it, by himself or his Chancellor. And for the proof of this, that he was no Bishop, it was alleged, that the form of Consecration of Archbishops and Bishops, which had been ratified by Parliament in the time of King Edward, had been repealed in the first year of Queen Mary, and so remained at Horn’s pretended consecration. The cause, being put off from term to term, comes at the last to be debated amongst the Judges at Serjeants’ Inn; by whom the cause was finally put upon the issue, and the trial of that issue ordered to be committed to a jury of the county of Surrey. But then withal it was advised, that the decision of the point should rather be referred to the following Parliament, for fear that such a weighty matter might miscarry by a country jury, of whose either partiality [or] insufficiency there had been some proof made before, touching the grants made by King Edward’s Bishops; of which a great many were made under this pretense, that the granters were not actually Bishops, nor legally possessed of their several Sees. 3. According to this sound advice, the business comes under consideration in the following Parliament, which began on the 30th of September; where, all particulars being fully and considerately discoursed upon, it was first declared, That their not restoring of that book to the former power in terms ‘significant and express, was but Casus omissus; and secondly, That by the Statute 5th and 6th Edward Sixth, it had been added to the Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, as a member of it, or at least an appendant to it; and therefore by 1 Eliz. was restored again, together with the said Book of Common Prayer, . intentionally at the least, if not in terminis. But, being the words in the said Statute were not clear enough to remove all doubts, they did therefore revive it now; and did accordingly enact, that “all persons that had been, or should be, made, ordered, or consecrate Archbishops, Bishops, Priests, Ministers of God’s Holy Word and Sacraments, or Deacons, after the form and order prescribed in the said book, be in very deed, and also by authority hereof, declared and enacted to be, and shall be, Archbishops, Bishops, Priests, Ministers and Deacons, rightly made, consecrate, and ordered, any statute, law, canon, or other thing to the contrary notwithstanding.” Nothing else done in this Parliament which concerned the Church, nor anything at all in the Convocation, by which it was of course accompanied, more than the granting of a subsidy of six shillings in the pound out of all their benefices and promotions. And as for Bonner, who was the other party to the cause in question, it was determined that neither he nor any other person or persons should be impeached or molested in regard of any refusal of the said oath heretofore made, and hereafter to be made before the end of that Parliament. Which favor was indulged unto them of the laity, in hope of gaining them by fair means to a sense of their duty; to Bonner and the rest of the Bishops, as men that had sufficiently suffered upon that account, by the loss of their Bishoprics. 4. By this last Act the Church is strongly settled on her natural pillars of doctrine, government, and worship, — not otherwise to have been shaken, than by the blind zeal of all such furious Sampsons as were resolved to pull it on their own heads, rather than suffer it to stand in so much glory.

And here it will be time to conclude this history, having taken a brief view of the state of the Church, with all the aberrations from its first constitution, as it stood at this time, when the Puritan faction had began to disturb her order; and that it may be done with a greater certainty, I shall speak it in the words of one who lived and writ his knowledge of it at this time, — I mean John Rastel, in his answer to the Bishop’s Challenge. Who though he were a Papist, and a fugitive priest, yet I conceive that he hath faithfully delivered too many sad truths in these particulars. Three books he writ within the compass of three years now last past against Bishop Jewel, in one of which he makes this address unto him, viz. “And though you, Mr. Jewel, (as I have heard say), do take the bread into your hands when you celebrate solemnly, yet thousands there are of your inferior ministers whose death it is to be bound to any such external fashion; and your order of celebrating the Communion is so unadvisedly conceived, that every man is left unto his private rule or canon, whether he will take the bread into his hands, or let it stand at the end of the table, the bread and wine being laid upon the table, where it pleases the sexton or parish-clerk to set them, p. 28. “In the primitive Church altars were allowed amongst Christians, upon which they offered the unbloody sacrifice of Christ’s body; yet your company, to declare what followers they are of antiquity, do account it even among one of the kinds of idolatry, if one keep an altar standing. And indeed you follow a certain antiquity, not of the Catholics, but of desperate heretics — Optatus writing of the Donatists, that they did break, raze, and remove the altars of God upon which they offered, p. 34 and 165. “Where singing is used, what shall we say to the case of the people that kneel in the body of the Church? yea, let them hearken at the chancel-door itself, they shall not be much wiser. Besides, how will you provide for great parishes where a thousand people are, etc.? p. 50. “Then to come to the Apostles — where did you ever read that in their external behavior they did wear frocks or gowns, or fourcornered caps? or that a company of lay-men-servants did follow them, all in one livery? or that at their prayers they sate in sides, or lay on the ground, or fell prostrate, or sung Te Deum, or looked toward the South? or did wear copes of tissue or velvet?” with a thousand more such questions, p. 446. “Whereas the Church of God, so well ordered with excellent men of learning and godliness, is constrained to suffer cobblers, weavers, tinkers, tanners, cardmakers, tapsters, fiddlers, jailors, and other of like profession, not only to enter into disputing with her, but also to climb up into pulpits, and to keep the place of priests and ministers, etc., p. 2... [sect 4.] Or that any bagpipers, horsecoursers, jailors, or alabaster’s, were admitted then into the Clergy, without good and long trial of their conversation? p. 162. [sect 3] “Or that any Bishop then did swear by his honor, when in his visitation abroad in the country he would warrant his promise to some poor prisoner priest under him; [sect 6] or, not satisfied with the prisoning of his adversaries, did cry out, and call upon the Princes, not disposed that way, to put them to most cruel deaths; [sect 5] or refused to wear a white rochet, or to be distinguished from the laity by some honest priestly apparel, p. 162; [sect 17] or gathered a benevolence of his clergy, [to marry his daughter to a gentleman or merchant, or] to set him up in his household? p. 163. [sect 7] “Or that the communion-table (if any then were) was removable up and down, hither and thither, and brought at any time to the lower parts of the Church, there to execute the Lord’s Supper; [sect 8] or that any Communion was said on Good-Friday; [sect 10] or that the Sacrament was ministered then sometimes in loaf bread, sometimes in wafers, and those rather without the name of Jesus or the sign of the Cross, than with it; [sect 12] or that at the Communion time the Minister should wear a cope, and at all other service a surplice only; or, as at some places it is used, nothing at all besides his common apparel; [sect 14] or that they used a common and profane cup at the Communion, and not a consecrated and hallowed vessel? p. 162, 163. [sect 15] “Or that a solemn curse should be used on Ash- Wednesday; [sect 16] or that a procession about the fields was used in the Rogation-week, rather thereby to know the bounds and borders of every parish, than to move God to mercy, and stir men’s hearts to devotion; [sect 18] or that the man should put the wedding ring upon the fourth finger of the left hand of the woman, and not on the right, as hath been many hundred years continued? p. 163. [sect 24] “Or that the residue of the Sacrament unreceived was taken of the priest or of the parish-clerk, to spread their young children’s butter thereupon, or to serve their own tooth with it at their homely table; [sect 26] or that it was lawful then to have but one Communion in one Church in one day, p. 164; [sect 35] or that the Lent or Friday was to be fasted for civil policy, not for any devotion, p. 165; [sect 44] or that the lay-people communicating did take the cup at one another’s hands, and not at the Priest’s [or the Deacon’s]? p. 166. [sect 28] “Or that any Bishop then threw down the images of Christ and his Saints, and set up their own, their wives’, and their children’s pictures in their [open] chambers and pylorus, p. 164; [sect 31] or that [a Bishop], being a virgin at the taking of his office, did afterwards yet commendably take a wife [so to call an harlot] unto him, p. 165; [sect 41] or that [any Bishop] was married on Ash-Wednesday; or that preached it to be all one to pray on a dunghill and in a Church; [sect 68] or that any friar of sixty years, obtaining afterwards the room of a Bishop, married a young woman of nineteen years, etc.?” p. 166. 5. Thus have we seen the Church established on a sure foundation: the doctrine built upon the Prophets and Apostles, according to the explication of the ancient Fathers; the government truly apostolical, and (in all essential parts thereof) of Divine institution; the Liturgy an extract of the primitive forms; the ceremonies few, but necessary, and such as tended only to the preservation of decency and increase of piety. And we have seen the first essays of the Puritan faction, — beginning low, at caps and surplices and episcopal habits; but aiming at the highest points — the alteration of the Government both in Church and State, the adulterating of the doctrine, and the subversion of the Liturgy and form of worship, here by law established. But the discovery of those dangerous doctrines, and those secret plots and open practices, by which they did not only break down the roof and walls of this goodly building, but digged up the foundation of it, will better fall within the compass of a Presbyterian or Aerian History; for carrying on of whose designs since the days of Calvin, they have most miserably embroiled all the estates and kingdoms of these parts of Christendom — the realms and churches of Great Britain more than all the rest. Let it suffice for the present, if I have set the Church on its proper bottom, and showed her to the world in her primitive luster, that we may see how strangely she hath been unsettled, how monstrously disfigured by unquiet men, whose interess is as incompatible with the rights of monarchy as with distinction of apparel, the government of Bishops, all set forms of prayer, and whatsoever else they contend against; and therefore I will here conclude my History of the Reformation, as not being willing to look further into those disturbances, the lamentable effects of which we feel to this very day.

AN ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER.