power) which they were prepared to inflict as the consequence. The press, they well knew, was in the hands of their sect; and that the man who dared to use it against them would do so at more serious costs than the loss of university honours.

While Cambridge proclaimed its zeal thus loudly, it will not be supposed that Oxford was silent. The document put forth under the name of the Vice-Chancellor and others in that university was shrewdly devised. Its great drift was to exhibit the Puritans as the patrons of misrule, and to commend the church in its present form to the royal protection, as especially adapted to give stability to the throne, and to sustain "the supereminent authority always pertaining to the regal person of a king."*

Somewhat more than six months had intervened, since the petition of the Puritan clergy was presented, when James issued Hampton a proclamation, which prohibited all writing or petitioning Court, Jan. on the subject of reforms in religion, on pain of his displeasure. In this document the king spoke of the established church as formed after the model of the best times, but observed, that as there were usages to which exception had been taken, a meeting of learned men would be very speedily arranged for the purpose of examining such particulars, and of adjusting such changes as should appear desirable. When the time for holding this long-promised conference arrived, the first day was occupied by the king and the prelates in discussions preliminary to the meeting of the Puritan ministers. It should be remembered in this place, that James had already signalized himself as a theologian, and that next to his vanity of being thought an absolute king, was that of being esteemed a profound divine. Owing to this last circumstance, the bishops found themselves in a situation of considerable difficulty in their private conference with the sovereign. We are told that James chose "to play the Puritan" on that occasion, and indulged this humour so far that the prelates cast themselves on their knees before him, entreating " with great earnestness that nothing might be altered, lest Popish recusants punished by penal statutes for their disobedience, and the Puritans, punished by deprivation from their callings and livings for nonconformity, should say that they had just cause to insult upon them as men who had travelled to bind them to that which, by their own mouths, was now confessed to be erroneoust." This reasoning, whether thus avowed or not, is always in operation in such cases, it being difficult for men to believe that the alteration of their course for the future will not seem to give a character of injustice, insincerity, or imbecility to the past. Other grounds of objection to change are of course more generally urged, but in this plea we have a conservator of the abuses of society, next in power to what is supplied by the more direct selfishness of such as are particularly interested in their preservation. In the issue it was seen that the conceit which recommended itself to the monarch on the occasion adverted to, was taken up purely for the purpose of displaying his learning and wisdom on such subjects, and not with a view to present any material impediment to the original plans of the court clergy.

On the following day, four Puritan ministers, selected by the sovereign, were opposed to nearly twenty prelates or other dignitaries, beside the members of the council, and a crowd of courtiers, the king being seated as moderator. The discussion which ensued has been variously, and at best but very partially reported. The account published by Dean Barlow, which is the principal authority on the subject, has evidently-to use the language of Fuller-" a sharp edge on one side." It limits the complaints of the Puritans to a few comparatively trivial particulars, and fails to convey any adequate impression of the nature of the reasoning with which the leaders among those people were always prepared to advocate those principles. A dignitary, who was present, wrote on the following day to a female relative in the country, and stated among other things that the Puritan representatives "made much stir about the book of Common Prayer, and subscription to it;" objecting to "all the ceremonies, and every point in it*." This account, which is no doubt in substance the true one, contains much more than is conveyed by that of Barlow. There are also some additional particulars in a narrative prepared by Galloway, a Scottish clergyman, who was present; but this document did not become public until improved by the recollection and taste of the sovereign. That the Puritan ministers were abashed in so unusual a presence, and on such unequal terms, so as not to have acquitted themselves with their accustomed ability and courage, may be supposed. But this circumstance should have taught their enemies to award them the more scrupulously whatever credit they had really deserved. The Puritans might easily have supplied the deficiencies, or corrected the mistakes of the accounts of this conference which emanated from the court; but to have done so would have been to exasperate the king, and must have involved the ministers principally concerned in difficulties which in our better times are happily little understood. It was deemed better, therefore, to leave his majesty in possession of his fancied triumph, and the prelates to reap the fruits of the pitiable sycophancy and impiety in which, according to the narrative of Barlow himself, it was their pleasure to indulget. James, in a subsequent allusion to this dispute, and speaking of the Puritans, observed, " I peppered them soundly. They fled me from * Winwood, ii. 13, 14.

+ Neal, ii. 12. It was the bad fashion of these times for the government to issue their official versions of public proceedings on questions of general interest. The gunpowder conspiracy, and the fate of Sir Walter Raleigh, called forth treacherous documents of this description, On this subject see Criminal Trials, ii. 3-7.

argument to argument. I was forced at last to say unto them, that if any of their disciples had answered them in that sort, they would have fetched them up in place of a reply *," the logic of the rod being well suited to such stupidity. A few passages from Barlow's narrative will suffice to show the manner in which this debate was conducted, and will enable us to judge whether the review of it furnished any just cause of self-gratulation to the monarch.

In the last reign there were certain meetings of the clergy for conference on religious subjects called prophecyings, which Elizabeth, with her wonted jealousy of freedom, had seen it expedient to suppress, but which, as exercises admirably adapted to train the clergy to proficiency in their vocation, found a strenuous advocate in no less a personage than the wise and cautious Sir Francis Bacont. The matter however was no sooner broached than James exclaimed, "If you aim at a Scottish Presbytery, it agrees as well with monarchy as God and the devil. Then Jack and Tom, and Will and Dick shall meet, and at their pleasure censure me and my council. Therefore I reiterate my former speech, Le roi s'avisera. Stay, I pray you, seven years before you demand that of me; and then if you find me grow pursy and fat, I may perchance hearken unto you, for that government will keep me in breath, and give me work enough." Having thus informed his auditory, with more freedom probably than was intended, of the devout motives which had induced the preference of an Episcopal to a Presbyterian church, the king diverged to the question of the supremacy of the crown in ecclesiastical affairs, and for reasons which the following extract will sufficiently state: "After Queen Mary had overthrown the reformation in England, we in Scotland felt the effect of it. For thereupon Mr. Knox writes to the Queen Regent, a virtuous and moderate lady, telling her she was the supreme head of

* Hearne's Titus Livius, 197.

:

+ "The ministers within a precinct," says Bacon, "did meet upon a week day, in some principal town, where there was some ancient grave minister who was president, and an auditory admitted of gentlemen and other persons of leisure. Then every minister successively, beginning with the youngest, did handle one and the same part of scripture, spending severally some quarter of an hour or better, and in the whole some two hours, and so the exercise being begun and concluded with prayer, and the president giving a text for the next meeting, the assembly was dissolved; and this was, as I take it, a fortnight's exercise, which, in my opinion, was the best way to frame and train up preachers to handle the word of God, as it ought to be handled, that hath yet been practised. For we see orators have their declamations, lawyers have their moots, logicians their sophisms, and every practice of science hath an exercise of erudition and imitation before men come to the life; only preaching, which is the worthiest, and wherein it is more danger to do amiss, wanteth an introduction, and is ventured and rushed upon at first." Certain considerations concerning the better Pacification and Edification of the Church of England. Works, vi. 61-97. Ed. Montagu. This admirable paper, and another on the same subject, intitled "An Advertisement touching the Controversies of the Church of England," (Works, vii. 28-60) was presented to the king soon after his accession. Both abound in the most weighty and valuable observations, and strongly urge a policy in regard to the Puritans, the reverse of that which it had been the pleasure of Elizabeth to adopt, and which, as we shall see, it was the pleasure of James to continue,

the church, and charged her, as she would answer it at God's tribunal, to take care of Christ's evangil, in suppressing the Popish prelates, who withstood the same. But how long, trow ye, did this continue? Even till by her authority the Popish prelates were repressed, and Knox with his adherents being brought in were made strong enough. Then they began to make small account of her supremacy, when, according to that more light wherewith they were illuminated, they made a further reformation of themselves. How they used the poor lady, my mother, is not unknown, and how they dealt with me in my minority. I thus apply it. My lords the bishops, (this he said putting his hand to his hat) I may thank you that these men plead thus for my supremacy. They think they cannot make their party good against you but by appealing to it; but if once you are out and they in, I know what would become of my supremacy, for no bishop no king. I have learned of what cut they have been, who, preaching before me since my coming into England, passed over with silence my being supreme governor in causes ecclesiastical *." It was not without reason, that Sir John Harrington, himself no Puritan, described the king as using "upbraidings" rather than arguments. "He told them," says that writer, " that they wanted to strip Christ again, and bid them away with their snivelling. The bishops seemed much pleased, and said his majesty spoke by the power of inspiration. I wist not what they mean, but the spirit was rather foul-mouthed t." In conclusion the king, turning to Dr. Reynolds, the most considerable of the Puritan clergy present, said, " If this be all your party has to say, I will make them conform themselves, or else harry them out of the land, or do worse."

It will be observed that in this discussion the royal moderator was chief speaker, and singular was the impression which the ribaldry uttered by him seemed to produce on the venerable ecclesiastics and grave statesmen who listened to it. Bancroft, bishop of London, casting himself at the feet of his sovereign, exclaimed, "I protest my heart melteth for joy, that Almighty God of his singular mercy has given us such a king as since Christ's time hath not been." Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, on hearing his majesty declare himself favourable to using the oath ex-officio, which, by requiring the accused to convict himself, was contrary to law and humanity, protested in his turn that his majesty had certainly spoken from the Spirit of God. Chancellor Egerton, that the lay courtiers might contribute something to this stream of eulogy, professed his belief that the king and the priest had never been so wonderfully united in the same person‡.

But the end of this proceeding was not yet. It was no small matter to tell the Puritan body that their religion was incompatible Effect of this with loyalty; and that their sovereign regarded them as conference. a people harbouring disaffection toward himself under the pretence of conscience toward their Maker. Men who are really conscientious in religion, whether wisely so or not, do not often become less so because made to suffer on that account; - the opposite result follows almost with the regularity of a law of nature, the enemy of their conscientiousness being generally viewed as the enemy of the object of their adoration, as well as of themselves. It was perilous to assure myriads of men that the only course by which the favour of their sovereign could be obtained, was one which they were persuaded would expose them to the displeasure of their God. In this state of things it was inevitable that the attention of the Puritans should be directed from the court to the parliament. Their weight was thus thrown into the popular scale, whether they would or not; and the king would have to lay his account with meeting the spirit of Puritanism in the halls of legislation, and in a temper much less manageable than in the mock conference at Hampton

Court.

Nor should it be forgotten that the claims and the conduct of the Puritans in that conference were characterised by unusual moderation. The schemes of the more violent among them during the past reign had been frequently liable to objection as going beyond the circumstances and spirit of the times. The changes now sought would have contributed to the stability rather than the injury of the church. But while the plans of the former class were resisted as presumptuous and revolutionary, those of the latter were to be discarded, to use the royal language, as " a snivelling about imaginary evils." But such are the artifices by which the powerful generally endeavour to retain their ascendancy-to ask much is to deserve punishment in the place of concession to ask little is to become the precisian, complaining of trifles unworthy of notice*.