association was levelled against her; and to remove all sus、 picion from herself, she also desired leave to subscribe it. 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 qui'ty 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.t 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 some times 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 + 27 Eliz. cap. 2. * 27 Eliz. cap. 1. Some even of those who defend the queen's measures, allow that in ten years fifty priests were executed, and fifty-five banished. Camden, p. 649. safely 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. The parliament, besides arming the queen with these pow ers, granted her a supply of one subsidy and two fifteenths The only circumstance in which their proceedings were dis agreeable 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 ! 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 ser vice; as if uniformity in public worship had not been estab. * 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. ished 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. Ho informed the queen, that all the spiritual authority lodged ir 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." 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 pro * Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. i. p. 410. ceeding, 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 they found reason to suspect any person, they might administer to him an oath, called "ex officio," by which he was bound to answer all questions, and might thereby be obliged to accuse himself or his most intimate friend. The fines which they levied were discretionary, and often occasioned the total ruin of the offender, contrary to the established laws of the kingdom. The imprisonment to which they condemned any delinquent, was limited by no rule but their own pleasure. They assumed a power of imposing on the clergy what new articles of subscription, and consequently of faith, they thought proper. Though all other spiritual courts were subject, since the reformation, to inhibitions from the supreme courts of law, the ecclesiastical commissioners were exempted from that legal jurisdiction, and were liable to no control. And the more to enlarge their authority, they were empowered to punish all incests, adulteries, fornications; all outrages, misbehaviors, and disorders in marriage: and the punishments which they might inflict, were according to their wisdom, conscience, and discretion. In a word, this court was a real inquisition; attended with all the iniquities, as well as cruelties, inseparable from that tribunal. And as the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical court was destructive of all law, so its erection was deemed by many a mere usurpation of this imperious princess; and had no other foundation than a clause of a statute, restoring the supremacy to the crown, and empowering the sovereign to appoint commissioners for exercising that prerogative. But prerogative in general, especially the supremacy, was supposed in that age to involve powers which no law, precedent, or reason could limit and determine. But though the commons, in their humble petition to the prelates, had touched so gently and submissively on the ecclesiastical grievances, the queen, in a speech from the throne at the end of the session, could not forbear taking notice of their presumption, and reproving them for those murmurs which, for fear of offending her, they had pronounced so low as not directly to reach her royal ears. After giving them some general thanks for their attachment to her, and making professions of affection to her subjects, she told them, that whoever found fault with the church threw a slander upon her, since she was appointed by God supreme ruler over it; and no heresies or schisms could prevail in the kingdom but by her permission and negligence that some abuses must necessarily have place in every thing; but she warned the prelates to be watchful; for if she found them careless of their charge, she was fully determined to depose them: that she was commonly supposed to have employed herself in many studies, particularly philosophical, (by which, I suppose, she meant theological,) and she would confess, that few whose leisure had not allowed them to make profession of science, had read or reflected more: that as she could discern the presumption of many, in curiously canvassing the Scriptures, and starting innovations, she would no longer endure this licentiousness; but meant to guide her people by God's rule in the just mean between the corruptions of Rome and the errors of modern sectaries: and that as the Romanists were the inveterate enemies of her person, so the other innovators were dangerous to all kingly government; and, under color of preaching the word of God, presumed to exercise their private judgment, and to censure the actions of the prince.* From the whole of this transaction we may observe, that the commons, in making their general application to the prelates, as well as in some particular articles of their petition, showed themselves wholly ignorant, no less than the queen, of the principles of liberty and a legal constitution. And it may not be unworthy of remark, that Elizabeth, so far from yielding to the displeasure of the parliament against the ecclesiastical commission, granted, before the end of her reign, a new commission; in which she enlarged, rather than restrained, the powers of the commissioners.† During this session of parliament, there was discovered a conspiracy, which much increased the general animosity against the Catholics, and still further widened the breach between the religious parties. William Parry, a Catholic * See note R, at the end of the volume. + Rymer, vol. xvi, p, 292, 386, 400. |