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brensis Eversus, informs us, "that it was passed by the artifice of one Mr. Stanyhurst, of Corduff, then speaker of the Irish commons, who being in the reforming interest, privately got together on a day when the house was not to sit,* a few such members as he knew to be favorers of that interest, and consequently, in the absence of all those, who, he believed would have opposed it. But that these absent members, having understood what had passed in this secret convention, did, soon after, in a full and regular meeting of parliament, enter their protests against it; upon which the lord lieutenant assured many of them, in particular, with protestations and oaths, that the penal, ties of that statute should never be inflicted; which they too easily believing, suffered it to remain as it was. This, adds my author, I have often heard for certain truth, from many antient people, who lived at that time; and I am the more inclined to believe it, because the lord lieutenant's promise was so far kept that this law was never generally executed, during the remainder of queen Elizabeth's reign;" which was more than forty years; that is, until all, or most of those members were pro bably dead, to whom such promise had been given.t

"In the very beginning of that parliament, January 12th, 1559, most of the nobility and gentry were so divided in opinion about ecclesiastical government," says sir James Ware, "that the earl of Sussex, then lord lieutenant, thought proper

? Annals.

"In this house of commons, we find the representatives summoned for ten counties only; the rest, which made up the number of seventy-six,were citizens and burgesses of those towns in which the royal authority was predominant. It is therefore little wonder, that in despite of clamor, and opposition, in a session of a few weeks, the whole ecclesiastical system of queen Mary was entirely reversed.”—Lel. Hist. of Irel. vol. ii. p. 224.

+ Sir Christopher Nugent asserted publicly before the king, the tradi tional report of the Irish, that this statute was passed in the fraudulent manRer above-mentioned.-Analect, Sacr. p. 431.

On the passing of this act (2d Elizabeth) "the clergy, who refused to conform, abandoned their cures; no reformed ministers could be found to supply their places; the churches fell to ruin; the people were left without any religious worship, or institution. Even in places of most civility, the statutes lately made were evaded or neglected with impunity.”—Leland's History of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 226.

This earl, had been lord lieutenant of Ireland in the preceding reign of queen Mary, and had procured all the acts passed under Henry VIII, to

3

to dissolve it, in the beginning of the following month." We find also, that his excellency, upon dissolving the parliament, went to England, to consult her majesty on the affairs of the kingdom; that, in a few months after, having returned to Ire, land, he received orders to call an assembly of the clergy, for the establishment of the protestant religion; and that, after this assembly had dispersed themselves, William Walsh, bishop of, Meath, not content with what offers her majesty had proposed, was, for preaching against the book of common-prayer, first imprisoned, and afterwards deposed, by order of her majesty."

Now, as under the words, " ecclesiastical government," the whole purport and tendency of this act of uniformity are plainly comprehended, may we not reasonably conclude, from lord Sussex's dissolving the parliament, on account of the jarring opinions of the members concerning that statute, and from the order which he soon after received, to call an assembly of the clergy, "for the establishment of the protestant religion," (which order, had that act been duly and legally passed, would have been needless, if not absurd) that the statute in question was not openly and regularly carried, but that it was forcibly and clandestinely imposed, in the manner before-mentioned ?*

3 Annals.

the prejudice of the Roman catholic religion, in that kingdom, to be repealed.-Analect. Sacr. p. 450.

We are told by a contemporary historian, that a similar artifice was successfully made use of, the year before, to get the like of uniformity passed in England; which, probably, was considered as a good precedent for passing the Irish act in the same manner. "The bill," says my author, "met many rubs and lets among the members of the commons; whereupon by watching an opportunity to summon the favorers of it together, at one unexpected hour, when the opposers were likely to be absent, viz. early in the morning, before the ordinary hour of resort of knights, citizens and burgesses to the parliament house, and upon a day unlooked for, the statists procured the said bill to be suddenly, and most unjustly (though not without some difficulty) passed by the greater number of voices: the rather because of the absence, and subtle circumvention of the rest of their fellow-members."-History of the Reformation, vol. i.

A grave contemporary writer has left us the following curious anecdote concerning the first steps towards the reformation of religion in England; "of which," says he, "I have seen a daily relation (of what passed in parliament) gotten from Mr. Cambden by a protestant bishop, and lent by

him for some days to me. So as out of the same, I can truly affirm, that such burgesses and knights were cunningly packed out of every shire and borough-town in the lower house, as for their inclination to the protestant religion, or other private respects, would easily conform themselves to the queen's intentions; and amongst the lords in the higher house, many great ones, loath to be long absent from their country sports, or by their first acts to distaste the young queen, absented themselves from parliament, and gave their proxies to the old earl Arundel, a known catholic, and to the duke of Norfolk, his son-in-law, not doubting but that they would do all things to maintain their religion against all undermining thereof. But it proved not so; for the earl put into a vain hope of marrying the queen, when by his age he might have been more than her father, and the duke of Norfolk being neither sound in religion, and for other ends of his own, not sincere in his proceedings, prevailed by their many proxies to exclude the bishops from sitting in parliament, all holy and learned men, able to have turned the business as they listed. After which vote passed, the queen's party in both houses still prevailed, so as not long after, new bishops, in place of the old, were chosen, some from Geneva, others out of Germany, of differ ent religions; yet contented for honor, wealth and wives, to join in any profession. Seven of them were apostate monks and friars, and most of the rest mere laymen, having neither ordination nor jurisdiction, besides that which the queen and parliament could give them; commonly, therefore, called the parliament-bishops, and patent prelates."-Legacy left to Protestants, p. 83-4-5.

With this account that of Heylin seems in a great measure to agree.— "Nor could the queen's design, says he, to bring about the reformation of religion, be so closely carried, but that such lords and gentlemen as had the management of elections in their several counties, 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 appear-, ed 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 Edward VI. 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 chuse 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."-History of Queen Elizabeth, fol. 107.

There were but fifteen bishops then actually in England, all the other sees being vacant by the death or flight of their possessors, of whom four

teen were deprived for refusing to take the oath of supremacy to the queen. Kitchin alone, bishop of Landaff, took it," who," says Heylin, “ having formerly submitted to every change, resolved to shew himself no changeling in not conforming to the pleasure of the higher powers."—Ib. p. 114.

I will here subjoin the account given by the above anonymous author, of the manner of providing successors to those deprived bishops, because it is particular, and seems authentic, and the book in which it is contained is not easily met with.

"I know," says he, "they have tried many ways, and feigned an old record, to prove their ordination from catholic bishops; but it is false, as I have received from two certain witnesses, the former of them was Dr. Darbyshire, then dean of St. Paul's, and nephew to Dr. Bonner, bishop of London, who almost sixty years since lived at Meuse-pont, then an holy religious man, very aged, but perfect in sense and memory, who speaking what he knew, affirmed to myself and another with me, that like good fellows, they made themselves bishops at an inn, because they could get no true bishops to consecrate them. My other witness was a gentleman of known worth and credit, dead not many years since, whose father, a chief justice of England, visiting archbishop Heath, permitted by queen Elizabeth to live in Surry, at the parsonage house of Cobham, saw a letter sent from bishop Bonner, out of the marshalsea, by one of his chaplains to the archbishop, read whilst they sat at dinner together, wherein he merily related the manner how these new bishops (because he had dissuaded Oglethorp, bishop of Carlisle, from doing it in his diocese) ordained one another at an inn, where they met together; and whilst others laughed at this new manner of consecrating bishops, the archbishop himself gravely, and not without tears, expressed his grief to see such ragged companions, come poor out of foreign parts, appointed to succeed the old clergy in rich deaneries, prebendaries, and canons places, who had such ill luck in meeting with dishonest wives, as an ordinance was put out by the queen and parliament, that no woman should, for a wife, be commended to any minister, without her honesty withal could be sufficiently testified unto him. And many who had been clergymen before, were urged either to take wives, or lose their be nefices, as many were content to do, and follow those bishops' example.”— A Legacy to Protestants, p. 85.

Heylin himself owns, "that partly by the deprivation of these bishops, deans, prebends, &c, there was not a sufficient number of learned men to supply the cures, which, says he, filled the church with ignorant, illiterate clergy, whose learning went no farther than the liturgy, or the book of homilies. And that 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, as not long after filled the church with sad disorders.-History of Queen Elizabeth, fol. 115.

What wonder then, if men so principled and needy, would submit be made bishops in the manner above-mentioned, merely for the sake of the temporal emoluments and dignity, and without any real regard to the sa

credness of the order?

CHAP. IV.

Sir Arthur Chichester's government.

IN the year 1605, "lord deputy Chichester, (who had been a pupil of the famous arch-puritan* Cartwright, and was himself a great patron and encourager of that sect,) having ordered the Roman catholic aldermen, and some of the principal citizens of Dublin, to be called before the council, exemplified under the great seal, and published the above-mentioned act of uniformity; in regard," says my author, "there was found to be a material difference between the original record and printed copies; that none might pretend ignorance of the original record; and added thereto the king's injunction for the observance of it."

Mr. Carte3 has discovered no less ignorance than partiality in his manner of justifying the execution of this penal statute, at that juncture. "The Irish catholics," says he, "became accidentally subject to the small pecuniary penalties of it, forty years after it was made, upon their separation from the public worship of the (established) church of Ireland; and it was reasonable to imagine, that such a sudden defection should have irritated the government, and put them upon somet wholesome severities, to stop it in the beginning." Here is a cause assigned for inflicting this penalty, which never existed

↑ Presbyterian Loyalty, p. 161.

3 Life of Ormond, vol. i.

2 Harris's Hist. of Dublin. This Cartwright was so staunch a non-conformist, even as to dere monials, that in his reply to archbishop Whitgift, he makes use of these words: "Certain of the things we stand upon are such, that if every hair of our heads were a life, we ought to afford them, for the defence of them." Sir George Paul, in his life of archbishop Whitgift, tells us, "that in his prayer before his sermons," he used to say, "because they meaning the bishops) which ought to be pillars of the church, do band themselves against Christ, and his truth, therefore, O Lord, give us grace and power, as one man, to set ourselves against them.”—p. 47.

Yet, in another place, he owns, "that the penalties of this act were raised for the private gain of ministers; and had always occasioned a clamor abroad, of a terrible persecution; and if rigorously executed (adds he) it would be a force upon the consciences of the poor ignorant Irish, as they stood informed."-Cart, Orm. vol. i, fol. 523.

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