obedience towards the holy see. They can- those ministers or partisans of queen Mary not fail to have much earlier obtained in-who now employed them. telligence of a nature that awakened their A circular letter of the primate, written alarms. The particulars of these accounts, by the queen's command, and to which and their coincidence with those secrets of Cecil added a paragraph of earnest exthe great continental powers which had hortation to mildness, tempered and almost transpired since the peace of Câteau-Cam- suspended the harshest part of these bad bresis, gave considerable probability to the laws. He takes it for granted that nothing outline of the reports which were made but the wilfulness of "some of that sort" to Cecil by his agents at Venice, and of could "compel" a bishop to tender the which, however mixed with mistakes and oath to them, and enjoins him in that exexaggerations, the substance seems to have treme case not to offer the oath a second been believed by that sagacious minister, time without consulting the archbishop and therefore in some measure acted upon himself; a direction not so consonant to by the English government. About the first principles as the professions of the time of these informations, the parliament opponents of the law, but, on account of of 1563 sharpened the severity of the act its very limitations, a much more concluof uniformity by making the second offence sive proof of the sincerity of the writer. against its provisions capital, if committed During the period now under consideraby an ecclesiastic of the established church, tion, no other change in the laws occurred. or by a person who deviated from the au- There can be no doubt that the administrathorized rites of the church after admoni- tion of Bacon and Cecil far surpassed in tion, or by such as in words or writing en- approaches towards toleration all contemdeavored to defame* the public worship, or porary governments. Their prudence and who said or heard private mass. temper probably led them often to connive

The oath of supremacy was declared by at a degree of religious liberty, from which this statute to import no more than an ac- as a general principle they would themknowledgment that "her majesty is, under selves have recoiled. Some stains of their God, to have the sovereignty and rule over age may, however, be traced in the policy all persons born within her dominions, of these excellent ministers. In 1568, a whether ecclesiastical or temporal, so as notable mark of the queen's displeasure that no foreign power shall have or ought was fixed on the ancient religion, by the to have any superiority over them;" an exclusion of Catholics from court. Shortly interpretation conformable to the instruc- after they were excluded from the bar by tions issued two years before by the eccle- an order in council, which directed the siastical commissioners, who had copied it benchers or governors of the inns of court, from the ambiguous and evasive laws of the places of legal education, to enforce Henry VIII. The oath of supremacy was the oath of supremacy upon all candidates for the first time imposed on members of for the bar or the bench. Sir Edward Walthe house of commons, as a condition which degrave, a Catholic gentleman who held must be performed before entrance into the high office under Mary, was, with his lady, house. Peers were exempted from the committed to the Tower for hearing mass; oath, as persons of whose faith and loyalty a committal which, under the largest conthe queen was otherwise assured. One struction of the act of uniformity, was of means of hostility against Catholics had, doubtful legality.* ** Some other unnamed indeed, been supplied by a clause in the act persons were committed at the same time of uniformity, which inflicted fine and im- with Waldegrave, and probably for the prisonment on those who use any form of same offence. We find a complaint from prayer but that contained in the liturgy; Grindal and another bishop to the privy and increased the penalty, even to impris- council, breathing no humane spirit against onment for life, in case of a repetition of the contumacy of lady Carew's servants, the offence. These statutes were opposed who refused to make oath to answer interby lord Montague and Mr. Atkinson, in rogatories where they apprehended that their respective houses, on principles of the answers might criminate themselves. liberty so large as to be of suspicious sin- Where such facts are still extant and accerity from any statesmen in that age, and cessible, it is certain that the madness of to seem not becoming in the mouths of fanaticism, and the officious servility of

petty tyrants in many cases unknown to lation which the reformation excited, into us, must have employed bad laws for ob- opinions which, though false, and indeed jects beyond their detestable purpose. Yet monstrous, were yet so alluring to the insome monument must have remained of a experienced philanthropist, as well as to persecution, if it had extended to capital the ravenous plunderer, that they might punishment, or had comprehended very become dangerous to the order and safety numerous victims. It was not till 1568 of human society. A smaller number, that the extensive and open prevalence of either inflamed by fanaticism or stimulated the Catholic worship in Lancashire began by rapacity, had perpetrated atrocities to awaken the alarms of the court. A which rendered them objects of suspicion commission was granted to the bishop of to every watchful government. The name Chester to examine and reform the state of Anabaptist was applied, by undistinof his diocese.* Information was given of guishing enemies, to persons of both these extensive confederacies, of secret meetings, classes; though the majority of those who of absolution from the oaths of allegiance, were so called had then nothing in comand of unlawful oaths of obedience to the mon with the furious enthusiasts to whom pope, which seemed so much to portend the appellation was first given, except an commotion, if not rebellion, that they deter- opinion perfectly inoffensive to society, red the bishop from visiting the most dis- that the religious ceremony of baptism affected parts of his diocese, where his should, like other sacred rites, be limited presence was most necessary. The Catho- to those who had reached an age when lics, however, escaped the consequences of they might possibly comprehend its meanthese imprudences without any more harsh ing. conditions than an acknowledgment of their The visionary was confounded with the offences against the act of uniformity, and criminal. The pacific opponent of infant a solemn promise to obey the laws; which, baptism was regarded as inheriting the though they were infringements of the atrocity of the Anabaptists of Munster; rights of conscience, will presently appear and therefore excluded from that into be palliated, or, according to the standard dulgence which began to be felt towards of that age, justified, by the events which other Protestants. In the further profollowed in the north of England. gress of injustice, the odium, though not

The Protestants who fled to England be- the punishment, extended to all the refore the destroying sword of the duke of formed. The effects of this immigration Alva, and from the religious wars of of foreigners were various. All ProtestFrance, had so much increased, that it was ants were inflamed by a more bitter anithought prudent to ascertain their num- mosity against the persecutors of their bers, at least in the capital, where the brethren. The mixture of many men of enumeration was more easy, and consider- obnoxious opinions, and of some of amed to be more necessary. The whole num- biguous character, among the refugees, ber of aliens in the city of London and the contributed to that disfavor with the adjoining parishes was found to be nearly church of England in which foreign 5000; of whom about 4000 inhabited the Protestants were held for a century and a city of London, and little more than 1000 half. The far greater number of the fugidwelt in the suburban districts. Of the tives were followers of Calvin, who, feelnumber in the city, 1200 were new-ing as well as knowing that the seat of comers. In the city, 3400 were French religion was the heart, desired a more or Dutch; which last term comprehended purely spiritual worship, delivered from Germans and Flemings. In the suburbs those outward ceremonies which, in their almost the whole of the foreigners were opinion, did not so much promote as they of these classes. It is not improbable debased and perverted devotion. The arthat the body of the aliens was not less dent affection which marked the piety of than a twentieth part of the dwellers in these men was not friendly to rites and the capital at that period. A very large forms, which they considered as having portion of them appear, from the countries been too much used towards human creaof which they were natives, and from the tures to be a fit mode of manifesting our circumstances of the Continent at the time reverence for God. of their arrival, to have been refugees for On this occasion, and about this time, religion, who spread alarm and horror by arose into more notice the party called the narratives of their sufferings. Among Puritans, from their professed purpose of them lurked many individuals who had purifying the church from those remains been carried along by the flood of specu- of Roman Catholic discipline and worship

* Strype, Ann. vol. i. part 2. p. 253. † Id. 260. Grindal's Return, 1567. Haynes, 445.

which the moderation of the earlier reformers had respected. They disliked rather than at first rejected Episcopal su

periority; but they more decisively blamed due to the supreme power in matters of the use of the cross in baptism, of the ring religion as in the civil relations of life. in marriage, of instrumental or hired Some circumstances peculiar to the situamusic in public worship, and of sacerdotal tion of Elizabeth contributed to an exervestments, polluted in their eyes by cise of that supposed right against PuriRomish adoption; they objected to episco- tans, which may—perhaps not improperly pal courts, and to the repetitions and re-be called the first civil war between sponses of the liturgy; they protested Protestants. That princess was now at against the lessons appointed to be read the head of the Protestant party, and cerfrom the apocryphal books, which the tainly foresaw that the Catholics were on Catholics retained as a portion of the the brink of a fearful struggle with the Vulgate, but of which it is not known reformers. She dreaded a division in the that there ever was a Hebrew original. Protestant camp. Dissenters from a ProThese scruples borrowed that vast power testant establishment were regarded as which they afterwards exercised, and mutineers who were likely to be deserters. which now appears so disproportioned to They were peculiarly obnoxious, because their intrinsic importance, from the dispo- they seemed to justify the adverse party in sition awakened by the reformation to re-branding the reformation as the parent of ceive nothing on merely human authority; endless confusion. To Elizabeth, as the and to bring every true Christian into that ruler of the most powerful of the reformed state of constant intercourse with the Su- states, whose honor and authority were preme Mind, which allows no authority identified with the safety of the reformaand little peculiar sacredness in priests, tion, seemed more especially to belong a and is displeased with the outward badges power of maintaining union among Proof their high pretensions. The devotional testants, who, even united, would still conspirit of these extreme reformers was of tinue to be the weaker of the parties about fended by those who appeared to them to to take the field against each other. claim a right of standing between them The Puritans were powerful in council and their God; and their jealousy was and at court. Bedford, Warwick, and Leinaturally fixed on bishops, on whom splen-cester, Cecil, Walsingham, and Knollys, dor and opulence had stamped a worldly were friendly to their cause.* In the lower character, and whose jurisdiction main- house of convocation, in 1562, a propositained order and discipline in the adverse tion to modify "the usages" (the name army. Those called bishops in the re- given to the practices alleged to be papal) formed churches they charged with pecu- was rejected by the least of possible maliar inconsistencies; because, having visi- jorities,-being only fifty-nine to fiftybly no warrant from the New Testament, eight; and those who were somewhat infethey confessedly derived authority through rior in numbers appear to have been of the channel of the church of Rome, which more weight, if considered either as men they at the same time taught to be a body of learning, or as numbering among them of idolaters. The Protestants, inconsistent- nearly all the voluntary exiles for religion.† ly with the spirit of their doctrines, but ad- Grindall hesitated about conformity; honest vantageously to their policy as a faction, George Fox protested against it. Jewell, made war principally against the external then celebrated as the champion of the symbols of the ancient religion; a course, church, spoke harshly against the usages, perhaps, rendered inevitable by the direc- and assigned the queen's inflexible adtion in which the passions of the multi-herence to them as his motive for acquitude never fail to run. But the cross and escence. Elizabeth, who had a queen's the surplice were assailed as the ensigns jealousy of power, and a woman's passion of a ritual and dictatorial system, against for splendor, became so much incensed by which a more pure and lofty spirit strug-resistance, that she proceeded to extremigled among the Puritans, long before those ties which ended in a lasting separation who were impelled by it became conscious of the Puritans from the church. The of its true nature. publications which issued from the ecclePuritanism had appeared under Edward siastical opposition were forbidden by deVI. Its numbers were recruited, and their crees of the court of star-chamber. Proclazeal inflamed, by the return of so many mations were issued against the printers, exiles from the seats of Calvinism in Switzerland at the moment of the queen's accession. The governments of England, however inclined by humanity and prudence to indulge a scrupulous conscience, were not exempt from the common error of their age,-that obedience was as much

*Neale's Hist. of Nonconformists, vol. i. chap. iv p. 166. edit. Lond. 1822.

† Strype, Annals, c. xxix. "Those," says the annalist, "who were for stripping the church of her rites and ceremonies were such as had lately Jived abroad in the reformed churches of Geneva, Switzerland, or Germany."

and even readers, of books unlicensed by rebuked the duke of Alva for speaking in the ordinary. Jewell refused to license an friendly terms of England, which the king apology by one of the accused, saying,- called "a lost and undone realm." "The "I am afraid of print; their tyranny is case," says Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, "is terrible."* After seal deprivations and not as in time past, when powerful neighdepositions by the commissioners who ex-bors contended for superiority. Now, when ecuted the queen's authority as ruler of the the general design is to exterminate all church, after a strong manifestation of nations dissenting with them in religion the aversion of the youth of Cambridge (as is most apparent), what will become of from impositions on conscience by human us if the profession of the like faith with jurisdiction, a meeting of about 100 per- ourselves be utterly destroyed in Flanders sons was, on the 10th of June, 1567, enter- and France?"|| In 1568 Cecil had demanded by the officers of justice, who appre-ed redress for the detention of English hended fourteen of them, and brought them vessels by Spain; and notified to the Spanbefore the privy council, on charges of ab-ish ambassadors that preparations were sence from their parish church, and of made for resisting these wrongs by arms. having used a form of worship different In July Sir Henry Norris, at Paris, refrom that enjoined by lawful authority. ceived secret information of designs against Several of them who refused to submit Elizabeth, whose government was to be were imprisoned, but soon released: thus overthrown by the rescue of the queen of began, in England, the persecution of Pro- Scots, and by a revolt at home, supported testants by their fellow dissenters from the by Spanish and even French troops, by aid church of Rome. The principle of intol- from the duke of Alva, and with sanction erance was affirmed by deeds as well as and supply from the supreme pontiff. Riby words. The minor machinery of per- dolpho, a Florentine banker in London, secution was put together and set up, was the secret agent of the pope in exnay, it was brought into activity; a perni- citing the Catholics to revolt. As the cious example, little excused by the limit- moment for action approached, Morton, ed extent of its immediate mischief. formerly a dignitary of the Roman Cath

No English blood had for ten years been olic church at York, was sent from Italy, shed on the scaffold or in the field for a whither he had retired, with the title of public quarrel, whether political or reli- apostolical penitentiary, to persuade his gious. In this important respect, that pe- kinsmen in the north to take up arms for riod forms a happy contrast with the ten the restoration of religion.** Nothing years which preceded. It is probable that could more effectually promote his purno great country could for centuries have pose than the tidings of which he could boasted the like felicity. The close of the not fail to be the bearer,—that Pius V. had year 1569 was, unfortunately, distinguish-issued or prepared a bull against Elizabeth, ed by a revolt, which partook both of a which, with the temper and pretensions of civil and of a theological nature. This the eleventh century, anathematized the was the famous insurrection of Percy, earl queen and all her adherents as heretics; of Northumberland, and Neville, earl of deprived her of her pretended right over Westmoreland, whose domains stretched England; absolved all her subjects from along the line of the northern border, and the oath and the duty of allegiance; and whose ungovernable but bold followers, enjoined, under pain of excommunication, inured to conflict, and trained in the sur- all the inhabitants of her dominions, that prises and stratagems of border warfare, they should not dare to obey her laws or placed these lords among the most power-commands.tt In consequence of apprehenful and independent of the English barons. sions thus excited, the queen of Scots was They were adherents of the ancient reli- removed from Bolton, where she had too gion, which retained its ascendant in the remote provinces; so much, that we learn from Sir Ralph Sadler "that there were not then ten gentlemen in the north who approved the queen's measures relating to the church." They were encouraged to revolt by the measures of the Catholic states, and doubtless excited to it by express assurances of effectual succor from abroad. Philip II. broke through his frozen reserve when he

§"Perdido y acabado Reyno." Note from Harrington, secretary of legation at Madrid. Haynes, 472.

Throgmorton to Cecil. Haynes, 471.

¶ Norris to Cecil. Paris, July 7, 1568. Haynes, 466. ** Camd. i. 194. Dod, ii. 114.

tt Dod, ii. 306. This famous bull, "Regnans in lend. Mart. 1569, which, in modern language and excelsis," &c., is dated by Camden and Dod 5 Castyle, would be the 23d of February, 1570. One copy Dod found dated 5 Cal. Maii, 1570, which would

make it two months later.

The activity of Pius V. in fomenting insurrection in England may be seen in his life by Hiero*Strype, Ann. vol. i. part ii. chap. lii. p. 272. nymo Catena, first published at Rome in 1588. The † Strype's Parker, chap. xvi. writer brings the narrative down to the trial of the Sadler, ii. 55. Letter to Cecil, December 6, 1569. duke of Norfolk. The substance is in Camden. VOL. I.

31

2 V

many Catholic neighbors, to Tutbury Cas- provide for the safety of her majesty's pertle, a place more distant from the borders. son; to rescue her out of the hands of evil White, a gentleman of Elizabeth's house- counsellors; to obtain liberty for their conhold, warns Cecil against suffering many sciences; and to settle true religion on such to have conference with her. "For be- foundations as might supersede the intersides," said he, "that she has a goodly per- ference of foreign princes, who would sonage, she hath withal an alluring grace, otherwise interpose to cure the long disa pretty Scottish speech, and a searching tempers of this distracted island. On their wit, clouded (softened) with mildness."* march to Durham they manifested their She found means in her new dwelling to fidelity to the faith of their fathers by a dispatch secret messages to Westmoreland, flag, on which the body of Christ, with the Northumberland; Radcliffe, a brother of five wounds received in the crucifixion, lord Sussex; Leonard Dacres, the uncle was painted, which was borne before their of lord Dacres; and to the families of Nor- van by Mr. Norton, a venerable old genton and Tempest, men of tried fidelity to tleman of the country, who, with his five the ancient church. Hartlepool, in the sons, devoted himself for the restoration of bishopric of Durham, was chosen to be the his religion. They purified the cathedral port where the auxiliaries to be supplied of Durham by burning the heretical (and by the duke of Alva were to land. The probably in their opinion unfaithful) verbuzz of so many hostile preparations, in sions of the Bible, and the books of public distant and various quarters, would have devotion, which had been profaned by reached a government less watchful than heretics. On the 14th of November, at that of Elizabeth. Darlington, the earls and their followers Rumors of an insurrection were preva- publicly heard mass. In about nine days lent early in the autumn,† which caused after, they mustered 9000 men on a moor the earl of Sussex to be sent to take the near Witherby; a force with which they command in the north. Lord Hunsden was had intended to march against York, had shortly after dispatched to Berwick, to they not been induced by the advance of second Sussex. After several ineffectual some of the queen's troops, who threw efforts to recall the border chiefs to their themselves into that city, to secure the duty, the queen summoned them, on the country behind them by laying siege to the duty of their allegiance, to repair to her fortress of Barnard's Castle, which occucourt. Northumberland paused at the pied the revolters for eleven critical days. near approach of peril. His followers, dis- On the 6th of December, Sussex began his trusting his wavering and inconstant dispo- march from York against the insurgents, sition, now shrinking from the fearful con- and established his head-quarters at Hexsequences which, in a moment of rashness ham on the 20th, and when the insurgents inspired by religious zeal, he had irrevoca- had retreated almost to the border of Scotbly incurred, had recourse to the expedient land, at Naworth Castle, in Cumberland. of conquering his fear of distant peril by The earls of Northumberland and Westthe fear of present danger. He was roused moreland fled to Scotland, leaving their at midnight by one of his servants, named followers to the mercy of an exasperated Beckwith, who frightened his master by party, whose execution of justice was accalling on him hastily to arise and shift for counted in their own age rigorous, and himself; for that his enemies, Ulstrop and would in our times be justly deemed cruel. Vaughan, were about the park, and had Our information concerning particulars beset him with great numbers of men. He is here more than commonly defective. ran to the house of one of his gamekeepers, On the 4th or 5th of January, "sixty-six without waiting to ascertain who or how constables and others" were executed at many his enemies were. The bolder con- Durham. Sir George Bowes, charged with spirators caused the bells of his town of the administration of martial law, executed Alnwick to be rung backward, in order to many favorers of the rebellion in "divers increase the numbers, the consternation, places of the country."T Northumberland and confusion of the multitude. On the

next day he was driven into the irrepara- § Holinshed, iv. 235.

ble act of marching at the head of his vas- The share of the Nortons in this revolt, and sals to join Westmoreland at Brancespeath. In the manifesto of these two lords, they declared it to be their purpose, in concert with the other nobility of the realm, to

* White to Cecil, Feb. 26, 1568. Haynes, 509. † Camden.

the extinction of their family, are the subject of Mr. Wordsworth's White Doe of Rylstone,-a poem in which the blended powers of history and legend, placed amidst beautiful scenes, and enthroned as it were in the remains of ancient piety, breathe a

sage and solemn strain of poetical sentiment.

¶ Holinshed, iv. 337. This appears to be the narrative nearest to the events; and it is corroborated by the insertion of some names. Modern writers,

Queen to West. and North. Nov. 10, 1569. by leaving out the words "and others," and by Haynes, 552.

representing Bowes's executions to have occurred