new regulations were enforced. This was granted, but not strictly kept, for the new book of common prayer was immediately prepared and published by authority.

Thus ended this digraceful conference, which excited almost equal discontent amongst the high-church partisans and the dissenters. The bishops had consented to changes, out of fear of offending the king, which they by no means approved, and were in no haste to carry out; and the dissenters were greatly chagrined that their delegates had not more boldly and resolutely enforced their views. But with such a monarch as James nothing like fair argument was possible; he avowed the most despotic principles, and contradicted those who opposed him with the undignified rudeness of a pothouse politician. The reformers complained bitterly of this, but James himself was incapable of feeling the force of public opinion. He was inflated with the idea of his own unrivalled eloquence and ability. He boasted that he had "peppered the dissenters soundly; they fled me,” he said, “from argument to argument like schoolboys." The bishops and ministers of his council added to his absurd egotism, by actually pouring deluges of the most fulsome adulation upon him. Bancroft, bishop of London, flung himself on his knees before him, and exclaimed that his heart melted with joy, and made haste to acknowledge unto Almighty God his singular mercy in giving them such a king, as since Christ's time the like had not been;" and Whitgift, the primate, protested "that his majesty spake by the special assistance of God's spirit." The lord chancellor Ellesmere, emulating the sycophants of the church, said that "the king and the priest had never been so wonderfully united in the same person;" and the peers echoed the plaudits, declaring that his majesty's speeches proceeded from the spirit of God operating on an understanding heart. "I wist not what they mean," wrote Harrington, in Nugæ Antiquæ; "but the spirit was rather foul-mouthed."

his crown than encourage such malicious spirits; and if he thought his son would tolerate them in his time, he would wish to see him that moment lying in his grave. The nonconformists complained that he persecuted the disciples whilst he favoured the enemies of the gospel. This was referring to his reception of catholics at court, and his promises not to molest them if they abstained from the open prosecution of their worship. But James left them under no mistake on that head: he expressed an equally vehement hatred of papists; and on the 22nd of February he issued a proclamation enjoining the banishment of all catholic missionaries. He went to the star chamber, framed regulations for the discovery and prosecution of all recusants, and issued orders to all magistrates to see the penal laws put in force against all persons, of whatever faith, who did not fully conform to the rites and ordinances of the church. Thus the miseries and oppressions of religious persecution were renewed with all their virulence; and the only consolation for those who refused to conform, was that they might persecute one another.

In the midst of this state of things, James was compelled to call a parliament. This assembled on the 19th of March, 1604. It was one of the most remarkable parliaments in our history, for it came together, on the part of both king and commons, prepared to contest the great principles of absolutism and constitutional liberty; a contest which never again ceased till the people had triumphed over the crown, and prescribed for it those limits within which it continues still to exist. The Tudors had made themselves absolute, but rather by acting than talking. They had willed, but had only occasionally boasted of the supremacy of their will. Whenever they had done so, especially in the person of Elizabeth, they received a protest so spirited from parliament, that they wisely again veiled their pretensions. But James, possessing all their personal vanity and love of unlimited power, had not the policy to keep his pretensions All parties connected with the church having thus ad- in the background. He protruded them on the public mitted that the king was acting under the most luminous notice; he vaunted his towering belief of his earthly divinity, effusion of the divine spirit, ought not, therefore, to have declaring that as God killed or made alive, so had he ormurmured when soon afterwards, without waiting for dained kings to do the same at pleasure. Years before he ecclesiastical sanction, he made his own alterations in the came to England, he published these imperious and imprubook of common prayer, and then issued a proclamation, dent doctrines in a discourse "On the True Law of Free warning all men neither to attempt nor expect any further Monarchies; or, the Reciprogue and Mutual Duty betwixt alterations in the church, and commanding all ecclesiastical a Free King and his Natural Subjects." This true law, and civil authorities to enforce the strictest conformity. according to him, consisted in a king doing as he pleased, Whitgift soon after died, and many attributed the accelera-independent of councils, peers, or parliaments. The king tion of his death to his mortification at the king's ordering the affairs of the church by his own will and wisdom, which Whitgift had been one of the first to extol as infallible. Bancroft succeeded, and showed himself a ready instrument of James's bigotry, and ready to enforce whatever cruelty he would attempt.

James spent full half of his year in hunting, and if any person or party had an urgent matter to prefer, the only opportunity for it appeared by waylaying him in his rides to the forest. The dissenters, as the time approached for the enforcement of the new canons of the church, presented a petition to him near Newmarket, praying a prolongation of the time allowed them for conforming. James received them with savage fierceness; told them that it was from such petitions that the rebellion in the Netherlands originated; that his mother and he had been haunted by puritan devils from their cradles; that he would sooner lose

was to be all command, the subject all submission. In these lawless ideas of the British Solomon regarding government, are comprehended all the conflicts which succeeded between the princes of his family and the people, and which eventually drove them from the throne.

In the proclamation calling this parliament, James took care to set forth the supremacy of his prerogative, and commanded the sheriffs and other officers to make no returns of members but such as were wholly agreeable to his views; there were to be no "persons noted for their superstitious blindness in religion one way, or for their turbulent humour the other." That is, neither puritans nor catholics were to be elected. Instructions were sent down to the various counties and boroughs, naming such persons for candidates as were agreeable to the court. But the puritans were in no humour to comply with such unconstitutional orders. They were justly filled with rescatment at the

A.D. 1604.]

STRUGGLE BETWIXT THE treatment of their representatives at Hampton Court, and put forward their own men, and returned them in great numbers in defiance of the government. One case led to a direct and vehement collision betwixt the crown and the House of Commons. As a member for the county of Buckingham, Sir John Fortescue, a member of the privy council, had been named by the court. The people of Buckinghamshire, afterwards so conspicuous in the struggles betwixt the Stuarts and parliament, put forward and returned Sir Francis Goodwin. The clerk of the crown refused to receive the return, and sent it back to the sheriff as contrary to the proclamation; for Goodwin had formerly been outlawed, and James had forbidden the return of outlaws. A second writ was issued, and under it Sir John Fortescue was elected. But the commons refused to admit him, declaring that as Goodwin's outlawry had been reversed, the proclamation did not apply to him, and that his return was good and should stand.

The government, in the name of the lords, proposed to the commons that there should be a conference betwixt the two houses on the subject before any other business was proceeded with; but the commons, with a clear insight into their privileges, where the constitution and functions of their own body were concerned, replied that it did not consist with the honour of their house to give an account of their proceedings and doings. On this they received a second message, in which they were informed through Coke, that his majesty being apprised of their objection, conceived that his honour was touched, and desired that there should be some conference between the houses. On this the commons sent a deputation of their members, headed by the speaker, to represent to the king why they could not confer with the lords on any subject. The king was exceedingly high, and let them know that they held all their privileges by the royal favour; but the members stoutly denied that doctrine, as the house at large had already this session denied it, saying "that new laws could not be instituted, nor imperfect laws reformed, nor inconvenient laws abrogated, by any other power than that of the high court of parliament, that is, by the agreement of the commons, the accord of the lords, and the assent of the sovereign; that to him belonged the right either negatively to frustrate, or affirmatively to ratify, but that he could not institute; every bill must pass through the two houses before it could be submitted to his pleasure.”

majesty, and be mediators betwixt them. James, now finding that he could make no impression by express command, sent for the speaker, and endeavoured to coax him over to his views; but that being unsuccessful, he ordered him to deliver to the house his command, “as an absolute king," to confer with the judges. This was a direct challenge to the popular element, to try its strength with the royal one; language which was sure to put a highspirited people on its mettle: the first utterance of that language, which no warning, no experience could teach a Stuart to abandon, till the utterance was quenched in blood.

When the speaker delivered this command, there fell a profound silence on the house; an augury and foreboding, as it were, of the gigantic struggle which was commencing. At length the ominous silence was broken by a member starting up and exclaiming that "the prince's command was like a thunderbolt; his command over our allegiance," he said, "is like the roaring of a lion! To his command there is no contradiction; but how, or in what manner we should proceed to perform obedience, that will be the question." It was finally agreed to send a deputation to confer with the judges in the presence of the king and council. At the conference there appeared no better prospect of success, when the king happily proposed that both Goodwin and Fortescue should be set aside, and a new writ issued. The commons gladly acceded to this proposal. The house was rejoiced at this solution of the difficulty, but out of doors those they represented were far from satisfied, and reproached the house with having yielded the right which they had boldly claimed. But in reality, the commons had done no such thing, for they proceeded, by their speaker's warrant, to issue the new writ themselves, and they have ever since exercised the right which they then assumed, of deciding all cases of contested elections.

The king, on his part, was as little satisfied as the people. He laboured under no mistake as to where the victory lay: he felt keenly that he was defeated in his soaring claims of prerogative, and the commons went on to let him know that they were resolved on an exercise of power still greater. They attacked the monopolies which James had declared by proclamation that he would abolish, but towards which not a step was taken. They complained of the continuance of the feudal grievances of assarts, wardships, aids for royal marriages, and purveyance. The right of guardianship of This was a doctrine that clashed most disagreeably with minors of estate continued a source of vast emolument to the James's absolute notions, and he rudely upbraided them crown, which received the proceeds of these estates, and renwith their presumption. But they stood firm to their posi- dered no account. This was, moreover, a source of equal tion, and what was extremely humiliating to the new peculation to the minister for the time being, and Cecil was monarch, excused his unconstitutional ideas through ignor-judged to draw enormous wealth from this abuse; and as ance or misinformation of the custom and laws of England; for purveyance, it appears to have been as recklessly and that the privileges of their house were the birthright of Englishmen, and could not be surrendered. James claimed that all disputed matters should be referred to his court of chancery; but they claimed to settle all such themselves, as the essential to the government of their estate.

When James found that nothing would induce the commons to confer with the lords, he ordered them to confer with the judges, and this command the deputation carried back to the house. But the house, after a warm debate, unanimously refused to refer the question to the judges; they drew up an answer to all the king's arguments, and sent it to the lords, requesting them to present it to his

insolently pursued as under any of the kings of York or Lancaster. The royal purveyors seized the property of the subject just as they pleased: took horses, carts, carriages, and provisions at will, called out men to labour for the royal pleasure, paying or not as suited them, felling trees, and committing sundry other depredations.

After much debate these grievances were referred to a committee; but as the lords would have nothing to do with it, the matter was obliged to be dropped. Bacon, who was assiduously climbing into royal favour, played a contemptible part on this occasion in the house, affecting the character of a patriot, and discoursing feelingly of abuses,

and distress of his subjects, was very comfortably and unconcernedly pursuing his great pastime of hunting. The crowds of courtiers and expectants which flocked to the neighbourhood of his sporting sojourn, were such as to eat up all the resources of those districts, and create distress of another kind, for the visits of royal purveyors were neither pleasant nor profitable. The archbishop of York, whilst writing to Cecil praying for a more vigorous prosecution of the catholics, ventured to entreat him to advise the king "against the wasting of the treasure of the realm, and for more moderation in the lawful exercise of hunting, both that poor men's corn may be less spoiled, and other his majesty's subjects more spared.”

for he sent the man back to Oxford, and soon after gave him preferment in the church, a singular mode, certainly, of punishing religious imposture.

From sleeping preachers, however, James was very soon called to the proceedings of men who were wide awake. The catholics, smarting under their renewed persecutions, felt it useless to remonstrate like the puritans, for both the church party and nonconformists were against them. They, therefore, as a body, brooded in silence over their sufferings; but there were amongst the oppressed spirits those who could not thus endure in patience, but planned a desperate revenge. Amongst these was Robert Catesby, the descendant of an ancient catholic family, seated for centuries at Ashby St. Legers, in Northamptonshire, and also possessing considerable property in Warwickshire. Catesby's father had been a great sufferer for recusancy, having several times been imprisoned, in addition to the plundering of his substance.

Cecil, with the fact of a courtier, replied to the archbishop before mentioning it to the king, letting him know that his majesty, amid his amusement, did not neglect the due chastisement of recusants; and that as to his hunting, it was a manly exercise, and ought to be a joy to him to behold the In his youth the younger Catesby, who was king so able of constitution, promising long life and a plen- wild and extravagant, was not disposed to sacrifice his tiful posterity. This answer he then laid before James, jollity for the maintenance of a persecuted faith. He who was duly delighted with it, telling Cecil that he had embraced protestantism, but in 1598 he returned to his “payed" the archbishop soundly, against whom he was ex- original belief, and feeling the bitter force of persecution, he tremely incensed for his plain suggestion as to the wasting became stimulated to an active hatred of the government. of the treasure and excess in hunting, declaring it the He joined the insurrection of Essex on condition that he most foolish letter that he ever read. He announced to Cecil should enjoy full religious freedom; and escaping the fate of that he meant to proceed from Royston, where he then was, his leader by the forfeiture of three thousand pounds, he to Newmarket, to hunt, and thence to Thetford. But other then secretly joined himself to the Spanish party amongst subjects were as foolish as the archbishop. The people of the catholics, in order to prevent the succession of the ScotRoyston caught a favourite hound of the king's, and put a tish prince. This hope being defeated, and the catholics not label round his neck, saying, "Pray, good Mr. Jowler, speak only seeing James prepared to falsify his promises of catholic to the king, for he heareth you every day, and so doth he not indulgence, but all the heads of the catholic world abroad— and entreat that it will please his majesty to go the kings of France and Spain, and the pope himself-seeking back to London, or else the country will be undone; all the friendship of James, Catesby conceived the gloomy our provision is spent already, and we are not able to enter-idea that deliverance could only proceed from the English tain him longer." The puritans also, who were expelled catholics themselves. In following out this desperate idea, from their livings, continually presented themselves amid his hunting with petitions, and as these were disregarded, their friends proceeded to diffuse their complaints through the press. On the printers and publishers of these papers James let loose Cecil, whom he designated his "little beagle."

us,

he gradually evolved a scheme of vengeance and annihilation of all the persecutors of his faith-the king, the lords, and the commons together-which would have enraptured Nero, and struck the modern world on its discovery with an appalling consternation. This was no other than to blow up the king and parliament with gunpowder.

The idea was not original, for it is stated in a letter by Persons, in Butler's Historical Memoirs, that "There be recounted in histories many attempts of the same kynds, and some also by protestants in our dayes; as that of men who at Antwerp placed a whole barrel of powder in the great street of that city, where the prince of Parma with his nobility was to passe; and of him in the Hague, that would have blown up the whole council of Hollande upon private revenge." But if it was not the first design of the kind, it certainly was second to none in its daring and wholesale atrocity.

From hunting James was called on to perform a task equally congenial to his disposition. This was to decide on what would now be at once recognised as a case of mesmeric clairvoyance. One Richard Haddock, of New College, Oxford, who practised medicine there, and was equally ignorant of Latin and Greek, as well as of divinity, had fallen into the habit of preaching in his sleep, during which he not only astonished his hearers by the depth and eloquence of his discourses, but by his accurate quotations of the learned languages. When awake, which is almost invariably the case with clairvoyants, he knew nothing of what he had said or done in his sleep, and could not pronounce a word of Catesby first made a confidant in his terrible project of the classical tongues. The man was sent for to court, and Thomas Winter, the younger brother of Robert Winter, first heard in his sleep and then examined by the king, of Huddington, in Worcestershire. Winter was the intiwho dealt with him in his usual way of imagined shrewd-mate friend of Catesby, and had been long associated with ness, till he had satisfied himself that the man had assumed this peculiarity to attract attention, and badgered and crossquestioned the poor man till he prevailed on him to confess that this was so. The king's profundity, however, did not attempt to solve the mystery of a man's speaking Greek and Latin who knew none; and it is probable that with his subtle questionings, he mingled more persuasive promises.

him in his plans for the relief of the catholics. He had been a volunteer in the wars of the Netherlands, and then was sent to Madrid as the secret agent of the Spanish party in England, amongst whom his friend Catesby was an active partisan. But familiar as Winter was with the sufferings and projects of the catholics, this bloody revelation struck him with horror, and he denounced it vehemently as most