СНАР. If the puritans were previously disposed to question the right of the civil power to render indifferent Effect of the things in religion compulsory, there was little in this conference. discussion to augment their confidence in the royal 1604. wisdom; nor were the injurious inferences deduced from opinions which they avowed, and from others which they did not avow, at all likely to diminish their attachment to their real principles. principles. It is among the few good tendencies which remain in the human heart, that unjust treatment, whether of opinions or of persons, generally creates a sympathy in their favour. The monarch, who would convert the loyal into the rebellious,has only to bestow on loyalty the reproach of rebellion. And if, at any time, the ruling church would transform those who dissent from her into uncompromising adversaries, she has only to persist in identifying the acknowledged principles of such persons with the abusive inferences which bigotry has connected with them. It should be particularly noticed, that the petition, which gave rise to this ill-fated conference, and the claims of the puritans in the conference itself, were wholly free from those objections to which the schemes of the more violent by the puritan representatives than is reported by Barlow; and with the exception of something like an expression of regret at the adulatory style of Whitgift and Bancroft, it exhibits the conduct of James and of the court clergy as a model of wisdom, candour, and devotion. Another living writer describes the puritan advocates on this occasion, as "the rabid presbyters, who, howling at the surplice as a rag of prelacy, and dashing into pieces the idolatry of painted glass, aimed at nothing short of abolishing the sovereignty and the hierarchy together."-Commentaries on the Reign of Charles I. p. 48. Yet we have no men complaining more frequently or more bitterly of the partialities and dishonesties of historians than Dr. Southey and Mr. D'Israeli. IV. 1604. of their party were sometimes liable in the last CHAP. reign. The changes now sought consisted of dispensations or reforms, which might have been conceded without injury to the church establishment, and which, in many points, would have conduced materially to its improvement and stability. But it was the lot of these sufferers, whether praying for little or much, to be equally denied, and to be denied because of the amount of their claim. The men, who called for nothing less than a change of the hierarchy, were told that a project so extended was not to be entertained for a moment, and that their presumption in urging it merited severe chastisement: and now, when a more sober class of men appears, whose complaints are limited to less important particulars, their modesty and temperance are described as "snivelling;" and they are told, that men who choose to be discontented on such trivial grounds, must expect banishment, or some heavier infliction. of the court this crisis, It is very justly remarked by the historian of Imprudence the puritans, that "if the bishops had been men policy at of moderation, or if the king had discovered any part of that wisdom he was flattered with, all parties might have been made easy at this time; for the bishops, in such a crisis, would have complied with any thing his majesty had insisted on; but the king's cowardice, his love of flattery, his high and arbitrary principles, and his mortal hatred of the puritans, lost one of the fairest opportunities that had ever offered to heal the divisions of the church."* About six weeks later 1604. *Neal, II. 20. March 5, IV. 1604. CHAP. the king issued a proclamation, stating, that a few alterations had been made in the service of the church, and that the strictest conformity would be expected, as no further change would be allowed. These amendments of the national rubric were accordingly published, and were declared to be obligatory, though without any sanction from either convocation or parliament.* I cannot forbear noticing in this place the disingenuous manner in which the puritans of these times are described in The Book of the Church. We shall select an instance. According to Dr. Southey, Whitgift ascertained, before the decease of Elizabeth, that the nonconformist clergy in the province of Canterbury were not more than forty-nine, about a sixteenth of their brethren; and the reader is required to consider "how intolerable it was" that so insignificant a body should be allowed to disturb the peace of the church. But should not the reader have been told also, that the number of the persons who braved the displeasure of their superiors rather than conform was small, when compared with those who shared sincerely in the scruples of such persons, though not prepared to hazard so much on account of them? Should he not have been apprised, moreover, of the manner in which the number of the nonconformists had been reduced so low-by expulsion from their livings, sixtyfour in Norfolk, sixty in Suffolk, thirty-eight in Sussex, &c. &c. &c.? And if the friends of nonconformity were really so few at the time referred to, whence the change which Whitgift himself lived to see-when a petition calling for ecclesiastical reform could obtain the signatures of 800 clergymen, and those only from a part of the kingdom? We must not suppose Dr. Southey uninformed on these subjects, and if not, how are we to account for this manner of writing history? CHAP. V. PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED-ITS PROCEEDINGS. MEETING OF PARLIAMENT.-KING'S SPEECH.-HIS PROCLAMATION.-ITS V. 1604 Meeting of Soon after the arrival of James in London, a CHAP. destructive pestilence rendered that city a scene of much bereavement and alarm.* The court was removed from place to place, at a distance from parliament. the metropolis, to escape the infection. And from this cause, and in some measure perhaps from others, it was not until nearly ten months after the decease of Elizabeth, that the first parliament March. Jan. of her successor was summoned; and a further interval of eight weeks elapsed before that assem- March 19. bly was convened. 1603. 1604. speech. The king, in his speech from the throne, as- King's sumed successively the language of the statesman, the historian, and the divine. He commenced by professing his gratitude to the nation, as represented in parliament, for the promptitude and affection with which it had received him. He congratulated his new subjects on the peaceful relations of the kingdom, with regard to Europe; Thirty thousand persons are said to have perished in London and its vicinity. V. CHAP. on its internal tranquillity; and on the many advantages which would probably result from that nearer union of Scotland and England, which his accession promised to secure. 1604. But the safeguards of order and prosperity through the kingdom were to be found chiefly in its state with respect to religion; and here, his majesty observes, were difficulties. "At my first coming, although I found but one religion-and that, the one which by myself is professed-publicly allowed, and by law maintained; yet found I another sort of religion, besides a private sect, lurking within the bowels of this nation. The first is the true religion, which by me is professed, and by law is established; the second is those they falsely call catholics, but truly papists; the third, which I call a sect rather than a religion, is the puritans and novelists, who do not so far differ from us in points of religion, as in their confused form of policy and purity-being ever discontented with the present government, and impatient to suffer any superiority, which maketh their sect insufferable in any well-governed commonwealth." It will be here observed, that while nothing short of total suppression or extirpation awaited the party dissenting from the monarch, not so much with respect to religion, as with respect to forms of policy, a more discriminating and moderate course was to be adopted in relation to the subjects of the pontiff. The Roman church was acknowledged to be "our mother church, although defiled with some infirmities and corruptions." The king had accordingly sought to lessen the weight of those burdens |