soldiers, others taking to foreign voyages, and some to courses tending to dissoluteness and the danger of their souls, to the great grief of their parents, and fear lest their posterity through these temptations and examples should degenerate, and religion die among them.-3. From an inward zeal and great hope of laying some foundation, or making way for propagating the kingdom of Christ to the remote ends of the earth, though they should be but as stepping-stones to others. Upon their talk of removing, sundry of note among the Dutch would have them go under them, and make them large offers; but choosing to go under the English Government, where they might enjoy their religious privileges without molestation, after humble prayers to God, they first debate whether to go to Guiana or Virginia. And though some, and none of the meanest, are earnest for the former, they at length determine for the latter, so as to settle in a distinct body, but under the general government of Virginia. Upon which they send Mr. Robert Cushman and Mr. John Carver to treat with the Virginia Company, and see if the King would give them liberty of conscience there.

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'Nov. 12. Sir Edwin Sandys writes from London to Mr. Robinson and Mr. Brewster: wherein he says, ' Your agents have carried themselves with that discretion as is both to their own credit and theirs

from whom they came. And the seven Articles subscribed with your names, have given the gentlemen of the Council for Virginia that satisfaction which has carried them on to a resolution to forward your desire in the best sort that may be for your own and the public good.'

"Dec. 15. Mr. Robinson and Brewster date their letter of thanks from Leyden to Sir Edwin; wherein they write, 'We have set down our requests, subscribed with the hands of the greatest part of our congregation, and sent them to the Council by our agent John Carver, to whom we have also requested a gentleman of our company to adjoin himself; and for your encouragement we will not forbear to mention these inducements: 1. We verily believe and trust the Lord is with us; to whom, and whose service we have given ourselves in many trials; and that He will graciously prosper our endeavours according to the simplicity of our hearts. 2. We are well weaned from the delicate milk of our mother-country, and inured to the difficulties of a strange land. 3. The people are, for the body of them, industrious and frugal, we think we may safely say, as any company of people in the world. 4. We are knit together as a body in a most strict and sacred bond and covenant to the Lord; of the violation whereof we make great conscience, and by virtue whereof we hold ourselves straitly tied to all care of each other's good, and of the whole. 5. And, lastly, It is not with us as with other men whom small things can discourage, or small discontentments cause to wish ourselves at home again.'

"1618. Jan. 27. Mr. Robinson and Brewster write from Leyden to Sir John Worstenholme; wherewith they send an account of their principles to be communicated to the King's Privy Council, who had received some ill impressions against them, namely, Touching the ecclesias'I suppose old stile."- Prince.

a

tical ministry, namely, of Pastors for teaching, Elders for ruling, and Deacons for distributing the church's contributions, as also for the two Sacraments, Baptism and the Lord's Supper; we wholly agree with the French Reformed Churches, according to their public Confession of Faith; though some small differences are to be found in our practice in some accidental circumstances: as, 1. Their ministers pray with their heads covered, ours uncovered: 2. We choose none for Governing Elders but such as are able to teach; which ability they [the French churches] do not require: 3. Their Elders and Deacons are annual, or at most for two or three years, ours perpetual: 4. Our Elders administer their office in admonitions and excommunications for public scandals, publicly before the congregation; theirs, more privately and in their Consistories.

Feb. 14. S. B., who delivered this letter, writes, that Upon Sir John's reading it, I asked his worship, What good news he had for me to write to-morrow? He told me, Very good news, for the King's Majesty and the Bishops have consented. But, for your letters, He would not show them at any hand, lest he should spoil all!'

"May. Though the agents of Mr. Robinson's people find the Virginia Company very desirous of their going;.. yet they found it a harder piece of work than they expected. For though many means were used, and divers of worth, with Sir Robert Naunton, Chief Secretary of State, laboured with the King to obtain it, and others wrought with the Archbishop to give way thereto, yet all in vain. They indeed prevail so far as that the King would connive at them and not molest them, provided they carry [themselves] peaceably; but to tolerate them by his public authority under his seal would not be granted. Upon which, the agents return to Leyden, to the great discouragement of the people who sent them.

"1619. Feb. Notwithstanding the great discouragement from the King and Bishops' refusing to allow them liberty of conscience in America, under the Royal Seal, yet casting themselves on the care of Providence, they resolve to venture; and send two other agents to agree with the Virginia Company: but the said Virginia Company falling into great disturbance and factions, these affairs are long delayed.

"May 8... Sir Edwin Sandys chosen [in April] Treasurer and Governor of the Virginia Company.

"Sept.-After long attendance, the Leyden agents obtain a patent granted and confirmed under the Virginia Company's Seal. But the patent being taken out in the name of Mr. John Wincob, a religious gentleman belonging to the Countess of Lincoln, who intended to go with them; and Providence so ordering that he never went, they never made use of his patent, which cost them so much charge and labour. However, the patent being carried by one of their messengers to Leyden, for the people to consider, with several proposals for their transmigration made by Mr. Thomas Weston of London, merchant, and other friends and merchants as should either go, or adventure, with them, they are requested to prepare with speed for the voyage.

1620. Upon receiving these, they first keep a day of solemn prayer, Mr. Robinson preaching a very suitable sermon from 1 Sam.

xxiii. 3, 4. strengthening them against their fears, and encouraging them in their resolutions, and then [to] conclude how many, and who should prepare to go first. For all that were willing, could not get ready quickly. The greater number being to stay, require their Pastor to tarry with them; their Elder, Mr. Brewster, to go with the other. Those who go first, to be an absolute church of themselves, as well as those that stay; with this proviso, That as any go over or return, they shall be reputed as members, without further dismission or testimonial: and those who tarry, to follow the rest as soon as they can... Those who are to go first, prepare with speed, sell their estates, put their money into the common stock to be disposed by their managers for making general provisions. There was also one Mr. Martin chosen in England to join with [their agents] Mr. Carver and Cushman. He came from Billericay in Essex: from which county came several others, as also from London and other places, to go with them. And a ship of sixty tons is bought and fitted in Holland, both to help to transport them and to stay in the country.

"June 10th... The ship in Holland being ready, they spend a day in solemn prayer; Mr. Robinson preaching from Ezra viii. 21.

"About July 21st. the English voyagers at Leyden leave that city.. and July 22nd, the wind being fair, they go aboard,.. and come to Southampton...

"Mr. Roger White, in a letter from Leyden, of April 28th, 1625, to the Governor and Mr. Brewster, has the following words, 'It has pleased the Lord to take out of this vale of tears your and our loving and faithful pastor, Mr. Robinson. He fell sick Saturday morning, Feb. 22d. Next day, taught us twice. On the week, grew weaker every day, feeling little or no pain. Sensible to the last. Departed this life the first of March, 1624-5. Had a continual inward ague. All his friends came freely to him: and if prayers, tears, or means would have saved his life, he had not gone hence. We still hold close together in peace; wishing that you and we were again together."

a Prince supposes

"Old Style."

b Ibid., and he remarks that "both Mr. Morton and Dr. C. Mather seem to mistake in saying 'July 2nd.'” See back, p. 394. note.

"That is, Apr. 18th, our style." "Feb. 12th, our style, 1624-5."

About the fiftieth year of his age."

f "When I was at Leyden, in 1714," writes Prince, p. 160, "the most ancient people from their parents told me that the City had such a value for them as to let them have one of their churches, in the chancel whereof he lies buried, which the English still enjoy. And that as he was had in high esteem, both by the City and University, for his learning, piety, moderation, and excellent accomplishments, the magistrates, ministers, scholars, and most of the gentry, mourned his death as a public loss, and followed him to the grave. His son Isaac came over to Plymouth Colony, lived to above ninety years of age, a venerable man whom I have often seen, and has left male posterity in the county of Barnstaple, [Massachusetts.]" We were disappointed at not finding any mention of Robinson, or of his church at Leyden, among the interesting notices subjoined to the Rev. W. Steven's "Hist. of the Scottish Church, Rotterdam. 1833." 8vo.

CHAP. XXVII.

CHARLES I.-LAUD.-BURTON.-THE FEOFFEES.-WITHER.

PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

A GLANCE at the true character of Charles I. is essential to the entertaining of something like a correct opinion concerning its influence on the spirit and measures of his time. His very youth was unpromising, from bodily ailings, and from successive developements of certain of the ingredients in his mental composition. His courtiers often prayed God, "that the Prince might be in the right way where he set; for if he were in the wrong, he would prove the most wilful of any King that ever reigned."b What were the principles he had imbibed, may be judged of from the high doctrines addressed to him by his father, and from his pupilage under Buckingham! Allied, too, by marriage, to the most intriguing and ambitious of women that ever had the means of influencing the counsels, and of accelerating the destinies of a great nation struggling against the paramount influence of a foreign jurisdiction, Charles became the victim of her wiles, and sacrificed his manly preeminence, even "the majesty of a monarch," to her "little practices.' To Henrietta is attributed the consummation of their joint folly: Allez, poltron! "Go, coward," she exclaimed, “and pull those rogues out by the ears, or never see my face any more!"f

"e

The struggle for the mastery, which divided the King and his people, is matter of universal notoriety: his repeated dissolution of parliaments, and his governing without one for twelve successive years, with the measures to which he resorted for supplies; and, not least of all, his chief counsellors in both Church and State; are themes of inexhaustible interest and instruction. With a dependent, servile, yet

a Archdeacon Echard, p. 417.—Hist. Stuarts, p. 15.-Bishop Burnet's Own Time, vol. i. p. 18.-Rapin's, Hist. Engl. vol. ix. p. 90.-According to Sanderson in his "Complete Hist. of the Life and Reign of King Charles from his Cradle to his Grave," 1658, fol. p. 6, "An. 1625. Besides Charles, the then kings of Spain and France stammered; but he with the least imperfection of them all."

b Roger Coke, Detection of the Court and State of England; &c. 1691. 16mo. vol. i. p. 211.-Lilly represents Charles to have been, in childhood, "beyond measure wilful, and unthankful:" but he adds, " Yet while he was young, he followed his book seriously, which his elder brother, Prince Henry, could not endure; and therefore king James would frequently blame Prince Henry with the neglect of his book, and tell how his brother Charles followed it; whereupon the prince would reply, When that he himself should be king, he would make his brother Charles archbishop of Canterbury!" Several Observations upon the Life and Death of Charles I. late King of England. 1651. 4to. Reprinted in The Life of William Lilly, &c. By Charles Burman. 1774. 8vo. p. 177. c King James's Works.

d Hume's Hist. Engl. Charles I. an. 1642.

• Clarendon's Hist. Reb. vol. i. p. 166. iii. p. 328.—Nuncio's Mem. p. 854.— Burnet, vol. i. p. 31.

f Jan. 3d, 1641-2. Hist. Stu. p. 107.-Echard, p. 419, 520.-" She had no more passion for him, than what served to promote her designs." Mrs. Hutchinson, Memoirs of Col. Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 135.

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a

b

insolent, domineering clergy, intolerant and vindictive, and with a bench of lawyers as subservient as they were mercenary, Charles had the temerity to set himself in array against his three kingdoms; and what wonder, therefore, when the mitre, the ermine, and the sceptre were alike sullied, that the imperial tiara itself should drop from its wonted elevation ? A man shall not unprofitably spend his contemplation," even Lord Clarendon advises, "who considers, on this occasion, the method of God's justice; a method terribly remarkable in many passages,—that the same principles, and the same application of those principles, should be used to the wresting all sovereign power from the Crown, which the Crown had, a little before, made use of for the extending its authority and power beyond its bounds, to the prejudice of the just rights of the subject." He is a great stranger," says another royalist lord,-Falkland,-" who knows not that this kingdom hath long laboured under many and great oppressions, both in religion and liberty."d And this same authority tells us, in another place, that "the Prelates brought in superstition and scandal under the titles of reverence' and 'decency;' and defiled our Church by adorning our churches !"e

King James's lessons of king-craft, produced among a people awakened to their own privileges the inevitable result; for, as it has been said, "By a fatal policy, men well affected to the Church of England, but enemies to arbitrary power, were driven, in spite of themselves, to side with the Puritans, in order to strengthen their party, and enable them to oppose the designs of the Court." But we revert to an authority against which no cavil may be apprehended: "In the House of Commons were many persons of wisdom and gravity, who, being possessed of great and plentiful fortunes, though they were undevoted enough to the Court, had all imaginable duty for the King, and affection to the government established by law or ancient custom; and, without doubt, the major part of that body consisted of men who had no mind to break the peace of the kingdom, or to make any con

"The inferior clergy took more upon them than they were wont, and did not live towards their neighbours of quality, or their patrons themselves, with that civility and condescension they had used to do: which disposed them, likewise, to a withdrawing of their good countenance, and good neighbourhood, from them." Clarendon. vol. i. p. 97.

The irreverence and scorn the Judges were justly in... In the business of ship-money, and many other cases in the Star Chamber and at the Councilboard, there were many impertinencies, incongruities, and insolencies, in the speeches and orations of the Judges, much more offensive, and much more scandalous than the judgments and sentences themselves. Besides, that men's minds and understandings were more instructed to discern the consequence of things, which before they considered not... He hath been but an ill observer of the passages of those times we speak of, who hath not seen many sober men who have been clearly satisfied with the conveniency, necessity, and justice of many sentences, depart, notwithstanding, extremely offended and scandalized with the grounds, reasons, and expressions of those who inflicted those censures; when they found themselves, thinking to be only spectators of other men's sufferings, by some unnecessary inference or declaration, in probable danger to become the next delinquents." Ibid. p. 70,-72.

d Rushworth's Hist. Collections, vol. iv p. 184. Rapin, vol. x. p. 258.