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did not relish the sharp usage it endured on account of the other's CHAP. disaffection. The council indeed gave some signs of attending to this distinction, by a proclamation issued in 1602, ordering all Elizabethpriests to depart from the kingdom, unless they should come in and acknowledge their allegiance, with whom the queen would take further order*. Thirteen priests came forward on this with a declaration of allegiance as full as could be devised. Some of the more violent papists blamed them for this; and the Louvain divines concurred in the censure †. There were now two parties among the English catholics, and those who, goaded by the sense of long persecution, and inflamed by obstinate bigotry, regarded every heretical government as unlawful or unworthy of obedience, used every machination to deter the rest from giving any test of their loyalty. These were the more busy, but by much the less numerous class; and their influence was mainly derived from the law's severity, which they had braved or endured with fortitude. I am persuaded that if a fair and legal toleration, or even a general connivance at the exercise of their worship, had been conceded in the first part of Elizabeth's reign, she would have spared herself those perpetual terrors of rebellion which occupied all her later years. Rome would not, indeed, have been appeased, and some desperate fanatic might have sought her life; but the English catholics collectively would have repaid her protection by an attachment, which even her rigour seems not wholly to have prevented.

It is not to be imagined, that an entire unanimity prevailed in the councils of this reign as to the best mode of dealing with the adherents of Rome. Those temporary connivances or remissions of punishment, which, though to our present view they hardly lighten the shadows of this persecution, excited loud complaints from bigoted men, were due to the queen's personal humour, or

* Rymer, xv. 473, 488.

+ Butler's Engl. Catholics, p. 261.

CHAP. the influence of some advisers more liberal than the rest. Elizabeth

Catholics.

III. herself seems always to have inclined rather to indulgence than Elizabeth- extreme severity. Sir Christopher Hatton, for some years her chief favourite, incurred odium for his lenity towards papists, and was, in their own opinion, secretly inclined to them*. Whitgift found enough to do with an opposite party. And that too noble and highminded spirit, so ill fitted for a servile and dissembling court, the earl of Essex, was the consistent friend of religious liberty, whether the catholic or the puritan were to enjoy it. But those counsellors, on the other hand, who favoured the more precise reformers, and looked coldly on the established church, never failed to demonstrate their protestantism by excessive harshness towards the old religion's adherents. That bold bad man, whose favour is the great reproach of Elizabeth's reign, the earl of Leicester, and the sagacious, disinterested, inexorable Walsingham, were deemed the chief advisers of sanguinary punishments. But, after their deaths, the catholics were mortified to discover, that lord Burleigh, from whom they had hoped for more moderation, persisted in the same severities; contrary, I think, to the principles he had himself laid down in the paper from which I have above made some extracts.

The restraints and penalties, by which civil governments have at various times thought it expedient to limit the religious liberties of their subjects, may be arranged in something like the following scale. The first and slightest degree is the requisition of a test of conformity to the established religion, as the condition of exercising offices of civil trust. The next step is to restrain the free promulgation of opinions, especially through the press.

* Ribadeneira says, that Hatton, animo Catholicus, nihil perinde quam innocentem illorum sanguinem adeo crudeliter perfundi dolebat. He prevented Cecil from promulgating a more atrocious edict than any other, which was published after his death

in 1591. De Schismate Anglic. c. 9. This must have been the proclamation of 29th Nov. 1591, forbidding all persons to harbour any one of whose conformity they should not be well assured.

+ Birch, i. 84.

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All prohibitions of the open exercise of religious worship appear CHAP. to form a third and more severe class of restrictive laws. They become yet more rigorous, when they afford no indulgence to the Elizabethmost private and secret acts of devotion, or expressions of opinion. Finally, the last stage of persecution is to enforce by legal penalties a conformity to the established church, or an abjuration of heterodox tenets.

numerous.

The first degree in this classification, or the exclusion of dissidents from trust and power, though it be always incumbent on those who maintain it to prove its necessity, may, under certain rare circumstances, be conducive to the political well-being of a state, and can then only be reckoned an encroachment on the principles of toleration, when it ceases to produce a public benefit sufficient to compensate for the privation it occasions to its objects. Such was the English test act in the interval between 1672 and 1688. But in my judgment the instances which the history of mankind affords, where even these restrictions have been really consonant to the soundest policy, are by no means Cases may also be imagined, where the free discussion of controverted doctrines might, for a time at least, be subjected to some limitation for the sake of public tranquillity. I can scarcely conceive the necessity of restraining an open exercise of religious rites in any case except that of glaring immorality. In no possible case can it be justifiable for the temporal power to intermeddle with the private devotions or doctrines of any man. But least of all can it carry its inquisition into the heart's recesses, and bend the reluctant conscience to an insincere profession of truth, or extort from it an acknowledgement of error, for the purpose of inflicting punishment. The statutes of Elizabeth's reign comprehend every one of these progressive degrees of restraint and persecution. And it is much to be regretted, that any writers worthy of respect should, either through undue prejudice against an adverse religion, or through timid acquiescence in whatever

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pre

CHAP. has been enacted, have offered for this odious code the false text of political necessity. That necessity, I am persuaded, can Elizabeth never be made out; the statutes were, in many instances, absolutely unjust ; in others, not demanded by circumstances; in almost all, prompted by religious bigotry, by excessive apprehension, or by the arbitrary spirit with which our government was administered under Elizabeth.

CHAPTER IV.

ON THE LAWS OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN RESPECTING PROTESTANT
NON-CONFORMISTS.

Origin of the Differences among the English Protestants-Religious Inclinations of the Queen-Unwillingness of many to comply with the established Ceremonies-Conformity enforced by the Archbishop-Against the Disposition of others—A more determined Opposition, about 1570, led by Cartwright-Dangerous Nature of his Tenets -Puritans supported in the Commons—and in some Measure by the Council-Prophesyings-Archbishops Grindal and Whitgift-Conduct of the latter in enforcing Conformity-High Commission Court-Lord Burleigh averse to Severity-Puritan Libels-Attempt to set up a Presbyterian System-House of Commons averse to episcopal Authority-Independents liable to severe Laws-Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity-Its Character-Spoliation of Church Revenues-General Remarks-Letter of Walsingham in Defence of the Queen's Government.

Puritans.

THE two statutes enacted in the first year of Elizabeth, com- CHAP. monly called the acts of supremacy and uniformity, are the main IV. links of the Anglican church with the temporal constitution, and Elizabethestablish the subordination and dependency of the former; the first abrogating all jurisdiction and legislative power of ecclesiastical rulers, except under the authority of the crown; and the second prohibiting all changes of rites and discipline without the approbation of parliament. It was the constant policy of this queen to maintain her ecclesiastical prerogative and the laws she had enacted. But in following up this principle she found herself involved in many troubles, and had to contend with a religious party quite opposite to the Romish, less dangerous indeed and inimical to her government, but full as vexatious and determined.

I have in another place slightly mentioned the differences

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