to the duke of Anjou, the combat of her sentiments was not entirely over; and her ambition, as well as prudence, rousing itself by intervals, still filled her breast with doubt and hesitation. Almost all the courtiers whom she trusted and favored--Leicester, Hatton, and Walsingham--discovered an extreme aversion to the marriage; and the ladies of her bed-chamber made no scruple of opposing her resolution with the most zealous remonstrances.[*] * Camden, p. 486.
Among other enemies to the match, Sir Philip, son of Sir Henry Sidney, deputy of Ireland, and nephew to Leicester, a young man the most accomplished of the age, declared himself: and he used the freedom to write her a letter, in which he dissuaded her from her present resolution, with an unusual elegance of expression, as well as force of reasoning. He told her, that the security of her government depended entirely on the affections of her Protestant subjects; and she could not, by any measure, more effectually disgust them, than by espousing a prince who was son of the perfidious Catharine, brother to the cruel and perfidious Charles, and who had himself imbrued his hands in the blood of the innocent and defenceless Protestants: that the Catholics were her mortal enemies, and believed, either that she had originally usurped the crown, or was now lawfully deposed by the pope’s bull of excommunication; and nothing had ever so much elevated their hopes as the prospect of her marriage with the duke of Anjou: that her chief security at present against the efforts of so numerous, rich, and united a faction, was, that they possessed no head who could conduct their dangerous enterprises; and she herself was rashly supplying that defect, by giving an interest in the kingdom to a prince whose education had zealously attached him to that communion: that though he was a stranger to the blood royal of England, the dispositions of men were now such, that they preferred the religious to the civil connections; and were more influenced by sympathy in theological opinions, than by the principles of legal and hereditary government: that the duke himself had discovered a very restless and turbulent spirit; and having often violated his loyalty to his elder brother and his sovereign, there remained no hopes that he would passively submit to a woman, whom he might, in quality of husband, think himself entitled to command: that the French nation, so populous, so much abounding in soldiers, so full of nobility who were devoted to arms, and for some time accustomed to serve for plunder, would supply him with partisans, dangerous to a people unwarlike and defenceless like the generality of her subjects: that the plain and honorable path which she had followed, of cultivating the affections of her people, had hitherto rendered her reign secure and happy; and however her enemies might seem to multiply upon her, the same invincible rampart was still able to protect and defend her: that so long as the throne of France was filled by Henry or his posterity, it was in vain to hope that the ties of blood would insure the amity of that kingdom, preferably to the maxims of policy or the prejudices of religion: and if ever the crown devolved on the duke of Anjou, the conjunction of France and England would prove a burden, rather than a protection, to the latter kingdom: that the example of her sister Mary was sufficient to instruct her in the danger of such connections; and to prove, that the affection and confidence of the English could never be maintained, where they had such reason to apprehend that their interests would every moment be sacrificed to those of a foreign and hostile nation: that notwithstanding these great inconveniences, discovered by past experience, the house of Burgundy, it must be confessed, was more popular in the nation than the family of France; and, what was of chief moment, Philip was of the same communion with Mary, and was connected with her by this great band of interest and affection: and that however the queen might remain childless, even though old age should grow upon her, the singular felicity and glory of her reign would preserve her from contempt; the affections of her subjects, and those of all the Protestants in Europe, would defend her from danger; and her own prudence, without other aid or assistance, would baffle all the efforts of her most malignant enemies.[*] * Letters of the Sidneys, vol i. p. 287, et seq. Cabala, p.
363 {1582.} These reflections kept the queen in great anxiety and irresolution; and she was observed to pass several nights without any sleep or repose. At last her settled habits of prudence and ambition prevailed over her temporary inclination; and having sent for the duke of Anjou, she had a long conference with him in private, where she was supposed to have made him apologies for breaking her former engagements.
He expressed great disgust on his leaving her; threw away the ring which she had given him; and uttered many curses on the mutability of women and of islanders.[*] Soon after, he went over to his government of the Netherlands; lost the confidence of the states by a rash and violent attempt on their liberties; was expelled that country; retired into France; and there died. The queen, by timely reflection, saved herself from the numerous mischiefs which must have attended so imprudent a marriage: and the distracted state of the French monarchy prevented her from feeling any effects of that resentment which she had reason to dread from the affront so wantonly put upon that royal family.
The anxiety of the queen from the attempts of the English Catholics never ceased during the whole course of her reign; but the variety of revolutions which happened in all the neighboring kingdoms, were the source, sometimes of her hopes, sometimes of her apprehensions. This year the affairs of Scotland strongly engaged her attention. The influence which the earl of Lenox, and James Stuart, who now assumed the title of earl of Arran, had acquired over the young king, was but a slender foundation of authority; while the generality of the nobles, and all the preachers, were so much discontented with their administration.
The assembly of the church appointed a solemn fast; of which one of the avowed reasons was, the danger to which the king was exposed from the company of wicked persons: [**] and on that day the pulpits resounded with declamations against Lenox, Arran, and all the present counsellors.
When the minds of the people were sufficiently prepared by these lectures, a conspiracy of the nobility was formed, probably with the concurrence of Elizabeth, for seizing the person of James at Ruthven, a seat of the earl of Gowry’s; and the design, being kept secret, succeeded without any opposition.
* Camden, p. 486.
The leaders in this enterprise were the earl of Gowry himself, the earl of Marre, the lords Lindesey and Boyd, the masters of Glamis and Oliphant, the abbots of Dunfermling, Paisley, and Cambuskenneth. The king wept when he found himself detained a prisoner but the master of Glamis said, “No matter for his tears, better that boys weep than bearded men;” an expression which James could never afterwards forgive.
But notwithstanding his resentment, he found it necessary to submit to the present necessity. He pretended an entire acquiescence in the conduct of the associators; acknowledged the detention of his person to be acceptable service; and agreed to summon both an assembly of the church and a convention of estates, in order to ratify that enterprise.
The assembly, though they had established it as an inviolable rule, that the king on no account, and under no pretence, should ever intermeddle in ecclesiastical matters, made no scruple of taking civil affairs under their cognizance, and of deciding, on this occasion, that the attempt of the conspirators was acceptable to all that feared God, or tendered the preservation of the king’s person, and prosperous state of the realm.
They even enjoined all the clergy to recommend these sentiments from the pulpit; and they threatened with ecclesiastical censures every man who should oppose the authority of the confederated lords.[*] The convention, being composed chiefly of these lords themselves, added their sanction to these proceedings. Arran was confined a prisoner in his own house: Lenox, though he had power to resist, yet, rather than raise a civil war, or be the cause of bloodshed,[**] chose to retire into France, where he soon after died. He persevered to the last in the Protestant religion, to which James had converted him, but which the Scottish clergy could never be persuaded that he had sincerely embraced.
The king sent for his family, restored his son to his paternal honors and estate, took care to establish the fortunes of all his other children, and to his last moments never forgot the early friendship which he had borne their father; a strong proof of the good dispositions of that prince.[***] No sooner was this revolution known in England, than the queen sent Sir Henry Gary and Sir Robert Bowes to James in order to congratulate him on his deliverance from the pernicious counsels of Lenox and Arran; to exhort him not to resent the seeming violence committed on him by the confederated lords; and to procure from him permission for the return of the earl of Angus, who ever since Morton’s fall had lived in England.
They easily prevailed in procuring the recall of Angus; and as James suspected, that Elizabeth had not been entirely unacquainted with the project of his detention, he thought proper, before the English ambassadors, to dissemble his resentment against the authors of it.
{1583.} Soon after, La Mothe-Fenelon and Menneville appeared as ambassadors from France: their errand was to inquire concerning the situation of the king, make professions of their master’s friendship, confirm the ancient league with France, and procure an accommodation between James and the queen of Scots. This last proposal gave great umbrage to the clergy; and the assembly voted the settling of terms between the mother and son to be a most wicked undertaking. The pulpits resounded with declamations against the French ambassadors; particularly Fenelon, whom they called the messenger of the bloody murderer, meaning the duke of Guise: and as that minister, being knight of the Holy Ghost, wore a white cross on his shoulder, they commonly denominated it, in contempt, the badge of Antichrist. The king endeavored, though in vain, to repress these insolent reflections; but in order to make the ambassadors some compensation, he desired the magistrates of Edinburgh to give them a splendid dinner before their departure. To prevent this entertainment, the clergy appointed that very day for a public fast; and finding that their orders were not regarded, they employed their sermons in thundering curses on the magistrates, who, by the king’s direction, had put this mark of respect on the ambassadors. They even pursued them afterwards with the censures of the church; and it was with difficulty they were prevented from issuing the sentence of excommunication against them, on account of their submission to royal, preferably to clerical authority.[*] What increased their alarm with regard to an accommodation between James and Mary was, that the English ambassadors seemed to concur with the French in this proposal; and the clergy were so ignorant as to believe the sincerity of the professions made by the former. The queen of Scots had often made overtures to Elizabeth, which had been entirely neglected; but hearing of James’s detention, she wrote a letter in a more pathetic and more spirited strain than usual; craving the assistance of that princess, both for her own and her son’s liberty. She said, that the account of the prince’s captivity had excited her most tender concern; and the experience which she herself, during so many years, had of the extreme infelicity attending that situation, had made her the more apprehensive lest a like fate should pursue her unhappy offspring: that the long train of injustice which she had undergone, the calumnies to which she had been exposed, were so grievous, that finding no place for right or truth among men she was reduced to make her last appeal to Heaven, the only competent tribunal between princes of equal jurisdiction degree, and dignity: that after her rebellious subjects, secretly instigated by Elizabeth’s ministers, had expelled her the throne, had confined her in prison, had pursued her with arms, she had voluntarily thrown herself under the protection of England; fatally allured by those reiterated professions of amity which had been made her, and by her confidence in the generosity of a friend, an ally, and a kinswoman; that not content with excluding her from her presence, with supporting the usurpers of her throne, with contributing to the destruction of her faithful subjects, Elizabeth had reduced her to a worse captivity than that from which she had escaped, and had made her this cruel return for the unlimited confidence which she had reposed in her: that though her resentment of such severe usage had never carried her further than to use some disappointed efforts for her deliverance, unhappy for herself, and fatal to others, she found the rigors of confinement daily multiplied upon her; and at length carried to such a height, that it surpassed the bounds of all human patience any longer to endure them; that she was cut off from all communication, not only with the rest of mankind, but with her only son, and her maternal fondness, which was now more enlivened by their unhappy sympathy in situation, and was her sole remaining attachment to this world, deprived even of that melancholy solace which letters or messages could give: that the bitterness of her sorrows, still more than her close confinement, had preyed upon her health, and had added the insufferable weight of bodily infirmity to all those other calamities under which she labored: that while the daily experience of her maladies opened to her the comfortable prospect of an approaching deliverance into a region where pain and sorrow are no more, her enemies envied her that last consolation, and having secluded her from every joy on earth, had done what in them lay to debar her from all hopes in her future and eternal existence: that the exercise of her religion was refused her; the use of those sacred rites in which she had been educated, the commerce with those holy ministers, whom Heaven had appointed to receive the acknowledgment of our transgressions, and to seal our penitence by a solemn readmission into heavenly favor and forgiveness: that it was in vain to complain of the rigors of persecution exercised in other kingdoms; when a queen and an innocent woman was excluded from an indulgence which never yet, in the most barbarous countries, had been denied to the meanest and most obnoxious malefactor: that could she ever be induced to descend from that royal dignity in which Providence had placed her, or depart from her appeal to Heaven, there was only one other tribunal to which she would appeal from all her enemies; to the justice and humanity of Elizabeth’s own breast, and to that lenity which, uninfluenced by malignant counsel, she would naturally be induced to exercise towards her: and that she finally entreated her to resume her natural disposition, and to reflect on the support, as well as comfort, which she might receive from her son and herself, if, joining the obligations of gratitude to the ties of blood, she would deign to raise them from their present melancholy situation, and reinstate them in that liberty and authority to which they were entitled.[*] * Camden, p. 489, Elizabeth was engaged to obstruct Mary’s restoration, chiefly because she foresaw an unhappy alternative attending that event. If this princess recovered any considerable share of authority in Scotland, her resentment, ambition, zeal, and connections both domestic and foreign, might render her a dangerous neighbor to England, and enable her, after suppressing the Protestant party among her subjects, to revive those pretensions which she had formerly advanced to the crown, and which her partisans in both kingdoms still supported with great industry and assurance. If she were reinstated in power with such strict limitations as could not be broken, she might be disgusted with her situation; and flying abroad, form more desperate attempts than any sovereign, who had a crown to hazard, would willingly undertake. Mary herself, sensible of these difficulties, and convinced by experience that Elizabeth would forever debar her the throne, was now become more humble in her wishes; and as age and infirmities had repressed those sentiments of ambition by which she had formerly been so much actuated, she was willing to sacrifice all her hopes of grandeur, in order to obtain a liberty; a blessing to which she naturally aspired with the fondest impatience. She proposed, therefore, that she should be associated with her son in the title to the crown of Scotland, but that the administration should remain solely in him: and she was content to live in England in a private station, and even under a kind of restraint; but with some more liberty, both for exercise and company, than she had enjoyed since the first discovery of her intrigues with the duke of Norfolk. But Elizabeth, afraid lest such a loose method of guarding her would facilitate her escape into France or Spain, or, at least, would encourage and increase her partisans, and enable her to conduct those intrigues to which she had already discovered so strong a propensity, was secretly determined to deny her requests; and though she feigned to assent to them, she well knew how to disappoint the expectations of the unhappy princess. While Lenox maintained his authority in Scotland, she never gave any reply to all the application made to her by the Scottish queen: at present, when her own creatures had acquired possession of the government, she was resolved to throw the odium of refusal upon them; and pretending that nothing further was required to a perfect accommodation than the concurrence of the council of state in Scotland, she ordered her ambassador, Bowes, to open the negotiation for Mary’s liberty, and her association with her son in the title to the crown.
Though she seemed to make this concession to Mary she refused her the liberty of sending any ambassador of her own; and that princess could easily conjecture, from this circumstance, what would be the result of the pretended negotiation. The privy council of Scotland, instigated by the clergy, rejected all treaty; and James, who was now a captive in their hands, affirmed, that he had never agreed to an association with his mother, and that the matter had never gone further than some loose proposals for that purpose.[*] Cott Lib. Calig. c. 9.
The affairs of Scotland remained not long in the present situation.
James, impatient of restraint, made his escape from his keepers; and flying to St. Andrews, summoned his friends and partisans to attend him. The earls of Argyle, Marshal, Montrose, and Rothes, hastened to pay their duty to their sovereign; and the opposite party found themselves unable to resist so powerful a combination. They were offered a pardon, upon their submission, and an acknowledgment of their fault in seizing the king’s person and restraining him from his liberty. Some of them accepted of the terms; the greater number, particularly Angus, Hamilton, Marre, Glamis, left the country, and took shelter in Ireland or England, where they were protected by Elizabeth. The earl of Arran was recalled to court; and the malecontents, who could not brook the authority of Lenox, a man of virtue and moderation, found, that by their resistance, they had thrown all power into the hands of a person whose counsels were as violent as his manners were profligate.[*] Elizabeth wrote a letter to James, in which she quoted a moral sentence from Isocrates, and indirectly reproached him with inconstancy, and a breach of his engagements. James, in his reply, justified his measures; and retaliated, by turning two passages of Isocrates against her.[**] She next sent Walsingham on an embassy to him; and her chief purpose in employing that aged minister in an errand where so little business was to be transacted, was to learn, from a man of so much penetration and experience, the real character of James. This young prince possessed good parts, though not accompanied with that vigor and industry which his station required; and as he excelled in general discourse and conversation, Walsingham entertained a higher idea of his talents than he was afterwards found, when real business was transacted, to have fully merited.[***] The account which he gave his mistress induced her to treat James thenceforth with some more regard than she had hitherto been inclined to pay him.
{1584.} The king of Scots, persevering in his present views, summoned a parliament; where it was enacted, that no clergyman should presume in his sermons to utter false, untrue, or scandalous speeches against the king, the council, or the public measures; or to meddle, in an improper manner, with the affairs of his majesty and the states,[*] The clergy, finding that the pulpit would be no longer a sanctuary for them, were extremely offended; they said that the king was become Popish in his heart; and they gave their adversaries the epithets of gross libertines, belly-gods, and infamous persons.[**] * Spotswood. p. 333 The violent conduct of Arran soon brought over the popularity to their side. The earl of Gowry, though pardoned for the late attempt, was committed to prison, was tried on some new accusations, condemned, and executed. Many innocent persons suffered from the tyranny of this favorite; and the banished lords, being assisted by Elizabeth, now found the time favorable for the recovery of their estates and authority.
After they had been foiled in one attempt upon Stirling, they prevailed in another; and being admitted to the king’s presence, were pardoned, and restored to his favor.
Arran was degraded from authority, deprived of that estate and title which he had usurped, and the whole country seemed to be composed to tranquillity. Elizabeth, after opposing during some time the credit of the favorite, had found it more expedient, before his fall, to compound all differences with him, by means of Davison, a minister whom she sent to Scot land; but having more confidence in the lords whom she had helped to restore, she was pleased with this alteration of affairs; and maintained a good correspondence with the new court and ministry of James.
These revolutions in Scotland would have been regarded as of small importance to the repose and security of Elizabeth, had her own subjects been entirely united, and had not the zeal of the Catholics, excited by constraint more properly than persecution, daily threatened her with some dangerous insurrection. The vigilance of the ministers, particularly of Burleigh and Walsingham, was raised in proportion to the activity of the malecontents; and many arts, which had been blamable in a more peaceful government, were employed in detecting conspiracies, and even discovering the secret inclinations of men. Counterfeit letters were written in the name of the queen of Scots, or of the English exiles, and privately conveyed to the houses of the Catholics: spies were hired to observe the actions and discourse of suspected persons: informers were countenanced; and though the sagacity of these two great ministers helped them to distinguish the true from the false intelligence, many calumnies were no doubt hearkened to, and all the subjects, particularly the Catholics, kept in the utmost anxiety and inquietude. Henry Piercy, earl of Northumberland, brother to the earl beheaded some years before, and Philip Howard, earl of Arundel, son of the unfortunate duke of Norfolk, fell under suspicion; and the latter was, by order of council, confined to his own house. Francis Throgmorton, a private gentleman, was committed to custody, on account of a letter which he had written to the queen of Scots, and which was intercepted. Lord Paget and Charles Arundel, who had been engaged with him in treasonable designs, immediately withdrew beyond sea. Throgmorton confessed that a plan for an invasion and insurrection had been laid; and though, on his trial, he was desirous of retracting this confession, and imputing it to the fear of torture, he was found guilty and executed. Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, having promoted this conspiracy, was ordered to depart the kingdom; and Wade was sent into Spain, to excuse his dismission, and to desire the king to send another ambassador in his place; but Philip would not so much as admit the English ambassador to his presence. Creighton, a Scottish Jesuit, coming over on board a vessel which was seized, tore some papers with an intention of throwing them into the sea; but the wind blowing them back upon the ship, they were pieced together, and discovered some dangerous secrets.[*] Many of these conspiracies were, with great appearance of reason, imputed to the intrigues of the queen of Scots; [**] and as her name was employed in all of them, the council thought that they could not use too many precautions against the danger of her claims, and the restless activity of her temper. She was removed from under the care of the earl of Shrewsbury, who, though vigilant and faithful in that trust, had also been indulgent to his prisoner, particularly with regard to air and exercise; and she was committed to the custody of Sir Amias Paulet and Sir Drue Drury; men of honor, but inflexible in their care and attention. An association was also set on foot by the earl of Leicester and other courtiers; and as Elizabeth was beloved by the whole nation, except the more zealous Catholics, men of all ranks willingly flocked to the subscription of it. The purport of this association was to defend the queen, to revenge her death, or any injury committed against her, and to exclude from the throne all claimants, what title soever they might possess, by whose suggestion or for whose behoof any violence should be offered to her majesty,[***] The queen of Scots was sensible that this association was levelled against her; and to remove all suspicion from herself, she also desired leave to subscribe it.
* Camden, p. 499.
** Strype, vol. lii. p. 246.
Elizabeth, that she might the more discourage malecontents, by showing them the concurrence of the nation in her favor, summoned a new parliament; and she met with that dutiful attachment which she expected.
The association was confirmed by parliament; and a clause was added by which the queen was empowered to name commissioners for the trial of any pretender to the crown, who should attempt or imagine any invasion, insurrection, or assassination against her: upon condemnation pronounced by these commissioners, the guilty person was excluded from all claim to the succession, and was further punishable as her majesty should direct.
And for greater security, a council of regency, in case of the queen’s violent death, was appointed to govern the kingdom, to settle the succession, and to take vengeance for that act of treason.[*] A severe law was also enacted against Jesuits and Popish priests: it was ordained, that they should depart the kingdom within forty days; that those who should remain beyond that time, or should afterwards return, should be guilty of treason; that those who harbored or relieved them should be guilty of felony; that those who were educated in seminaries, if they returned not in six months after notice given, and submitted not themselves to the queen, before a bishop or two justices, should be guilty of treason; and that if any, so submitting themselves, should, within ten years, approach the court, or come within ten miles of it, their submission should be void.[**] By this law, the exercise of the Catholic religion, which had formerly been prohibited under lighter penalties, and which was in many instances connived at, was totally suppressed. In the subsequent part of the queen’s reign, the law was sometimes executed by the capital punishment of priests; and though the partisans of that princess asserted that they were punished for their treason, not their religion, the apology must only be understood in this sense, that the law was enacted on account of the treasonable views and attempts of the sect, not that every individual who suffered the penalty of the law was convicted of treason.[***] The Catholics, therefore, might now with justice complain of a violent persecution; which we may safety affirm, in spite of the rigid and bigoted maxims of that age, not to be the best method of converting them, or of reconciling them to the established government and religion.
* 27 Eliz. cap. 1.
* 27 Eliz. cap. 2.
* Some even of those who defend the queen’s measures, allow that in ten years fifty priests were executed, and fiftyfive banished Camden, p. 649.
The parliament, besides arming the queen with these powers, granted her a supply of one subsidy and two fifteenths. The only circumstance in which their proceedings were disagreeable to her, was an application, made by the commons, for a further reformation in ecclesiastical matters. Yet even in this attempt, which affected her, as well as them, in a delicate point, they discovered how much they were overawed by her authority. The majority of the house were Puritans, or inclined to that sect;[*] but the severe reprimands which they had already, in former sessions, met with from the throne deterred them from introducing any bill concerning religion; a proceeding which would have been interpreted as an encroachment on the prerogative: they were content to proceed by way of humble petition, and that not addressed to her majesty, which would have given offence, but to the house of lords, or rather the bishops, who had a seat in that house, and from whom alone they were willing to receive all advances towards reformation;[**] a strange departure from what we now apprehend to be the dignity of the commons!
* Besides the petition after mentioned, another proof of the prevalency of the Puritans among the commons was, their passing a bill for the reverent observance of Sunday, which they termed the Sabbath, and the depriving the people of those amusements which they were accustomed to take on that day. D’Ewes, p. 335. It was a strong symptom of a contrary spirit in the upper house, that they proposed to add Wednesday to the fast days, and to prohibit entirely the eating of flesh on that day. D’Ewes, p. 373.
* D’Ewes, p. 357 The commons desired, in their humble petition, that no bishop should exercise his function of ordination but with the consent and concurrence of six presbyters: but this demand, as it really introduced a change of ecclesiastical government, was firmly rejected by the prelates.
They desired, that no clergyman should be instituted into any benefice without previous notice being given to the parish, that they might examine whether there lay any objection to his life or doctrine; an attempt towards a popular model, which naturally met with the same fate.
In another article of the petition, they prayed that the bishops should not insist upon every ceremony, or deprive incumbents for omitting part of the service; as if uniformity in public worship had not been established by law; or as if the prelates had been endowed with a dispensing power. They complained of abuses which prevailed in pronouncing the sentence of excommunication, and they entreated the reverend fathers to think of some law for the remedy of these abuses: implying that those matters were too high for the commons of themselves to attempt.
But the most material article which the commons touched upon in their petition, was the court of ecclesiastical commission, and the oath “ex officio,” as it was called, exacted by that court. This is a subject of such importance as to merit some explanation.
The first primate after the queen’s accession, was Parker; a man rigid in exacting conformity to the established worship, and in punishing, by fine or deprivation, all the Puritanical clergymen who attempted to innovate any thing in the habits, ceremonies, or liturgy of the church.
He died in 1575; and was succeeded by Grindal, who, as he himself was inclined to the new sect, was with great difficulty brought to execute the laws against them, or to punish the nonconforming clergy.
He declined obeying the queen’s orders for the suppression of “prophesyings,” or the assemblies of the zealots in private houses, which, she apprehended, had become so many academies of fanaticism; and for this offence she had, by an order of the star chamber, sequestered him from his archiepiscopal function, and confined him to his own house.
Upon his death, which happened in 1583, she determined not to fall into the same error in her next choice; and she named Whitgift, a zealous Churchman, who had already signalized his pen in controversy, and who, having in vain attempted to convince the Puritans by argument, was now resolved to open their eyes by power, and by the execution of penal statutes. He informed the queen, that all the spiritual authority lodged in the prelates was insignificant without the sanction of the crown; and as there was no ecclesiastical commission at that time in force, he engaged her to issue a new one, more arbitrary than any of the former, and conveying more unlimited authority.[*] * Neal’s History of the Puritans, vol. i. p. 410.
She appointed forty-four commissioners, twelve of whom were ecclesiastics; three commissioners made a quorum; the jurisdiction of the court extended over the whole kingdom and over all orders of men; and every circumstance of its authority, and all its methods of proceeding, were contrary to the clearest principles of law and natural equity. The commissioners were empowered to visit and reform all errors, heresies, schisms, in a word, to regulate all opinions, as well as to punish all breach of uniformity in the exercise of public worship. They were directed to make inquiry, not only by the legal methods of juries and witnesses, but by all other means and ways which they could devise; that is, by the rack, by torture, by inquisition, by imprisonment Where