submit to the surplice, and to make the sign of the cross in baptism. The remonstrances of the country gentry availed as little as the protest of Lord Burleigh himself to protect two hundred of the best ministers from being driven from their parsonages on a refusal to subscribe to the Three Articles. But the persecution only gave fresh life and popularity to the doctrines which it aimed at crushing by drawing together two currents of opinion which were in themselves perfectly distinct. The Presbyterian platform of church discipline had as yet been embraced by the clergy only, and by few among the clergy. On the other hand, the wish of the Puritans for a reform in the Liturgy, the dislike of "superstitious usages," of the use of the surplice, the sign of the cross in baptism, the gift of the ring in marriage, the posture of kneeling at the Lord's Supper, was shared by a large number of the clergy and laity alike. At the opening of Elizabeth's reign almost all the higher churchmen save Parker were opposed to them, and a motion in convocation for their abolition was lost by a single vote. The temper of the country gentlemen on this subject was indicated by that of Parliament; and it was well known that the wisest of the queen's councillors, Burleigh, Walsingham, and Knollys, were at one in this matter with the gentry. If their common persecution did not wholly succeed in fusing these two sections of religious opinion into one, it at any rate gained for the Presbyterians a general sympathy on the part of the Puritans, which raised them from a clerical clique into a popular party. Nor were the consequences of the persecution limited to the strengthening of the Presbyterians.

84. The Development of Independency

The "Separatists," who were beginning to withdraw from attendance at public worship on the ground that the very existence of a national Church was contrary to the Word of God, grew quickly from a few scattered zealots to twenty thousand souls. Presbyterian and Puritan felt as bitter an abhorrence as Elizabeth herself of the" Brownists," as they were nicknamed after their founder, Robert Brown. Parliament, Puritan as it was, passed a statute against them. Brown himself was forced to fly to the Netherlands, and of his followers many were driven into exile. So great a future awaited one of these congregations that we may pause to get a glimpse of "a poor people" in Lincolnshire and the neighborhood, who "being enlightened by the Word of God," and their

members "urged with the yoke of subscription," had been led "to see further." They rejected ceremonies as relics of idolatry, the rule of bishops as unscriptural, and joined themselves, "as the Lord's free people," into "a church estate on the fellowship of the Gospel." Feeling their way forward to the great principle of liberty of conscience, they asserted their Christian right "to walk in all the ways which God had made known or should make known to them."

Their meetings or "conventicles" soon drew down the heavy hand of the law, and the little company resolved to seek a refuge in other lands; but their first attempt at flight was prevented, and when they made another, their wives and children were seized at the very moment of entering the ship. At last, however, the magistrates gave a contemptuous assent to their project; they were, in fact, "glad to be rid of them at any price," and the fugitives found shelter at Amsterdam, from whence some of them, choosing John Robinson as their minister, took refuge in 1609 at Leyden. "They knew they were pilgrims and looked not much on these things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dearest country, and quieted their spirits." Among this little band of exiles were those who were to become famous at a later time as the Pilgrim Fathers of the Mayflower.

It was easy to be "rid" of the Brownists; but the political danger of the course on which the crown had entered was seen in the rise of a spirit of vigorous opposition, such as had not made its appearance since the accession of the Tudors. The growing power of public opinion received a striking recognition in the struggle which bears the name of the "Martin Marprelate controversy." The Puritans had from the first appealed by their pamphlets from the crown to the people, and Whitgift bore witness to their influence on opinion by his efforts to gag the press. The regulations of the Star Chamber for this purpose are memorable as the first step in the long struggle of government after government to check the liberty of printing. The irregular censorship which had long existed was now finally organized. Printing was restricted to London and the two universities, the number of printers reduced, and all candidates for license to print were placed under the supervision of the Company of Stationers. Every publication, too, great or small, had to receive the approbation of the Primate or the Bishop of London.

The first result of this system of repression was the appearance, in the very year of the Armada, of a series of anonymous pam

phlets bearing the significant name of "Martin Marprelate," and issued from a secret press which found refuge from the royal pursuivants in the country houses of the gentry. The press was at last seized; and the suspected authors of these scurrilous libels, Penry, a young Welshman, and a minister named Udall, died, the one in prison, the other on the scaffold. But the virulence and boldness of their language produced a powerful effect, for it was impossible under the system of Elizabeth to "mar" the bishops without attacking the crown; and a new age of political liberty was felt to be at hand when Martin Marprelate forced the political and ecclesiastical measures of the government into the arena of public discussion. The suppression, indeed, of these pamphlets was far from damping the courage of the Presbyterians. Cartwright, who had been appointed by Lord Leicester to the mastership of an hospital at Warwick, was bold enough to organize his system of church discipline among the clergy of that county and of Northamptonshire. His example was widely followed, and the general gatherings of the whole ministerial body of the clergy and the smaller assemblies for each diocese or shire, which in the Presbyterian scheme bore the name of synods and classes, began to be held in many parts of England for the purposes of debate and consultation. The new organization was quickly suppressed, indeed, but Cartwright was saved from the banishment which Whitgift demanded by a promise of submission; his influence steadily increased, and the struggle, transferred to the higher sphere of the Parliament, widened into the great contest for liberty under James and the civil war under his successor.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Marsden, History of the Early Puritans, 2nd ed., 1853. Masson, Life of Milton, see Index under title "Puritanism." Illustrative materials in Prothero, Statutes and Constitutional Documents.

PART V

THE STUART CONSTITUTIONAL CONFLICT

CHAPTER I

OPENING OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL STRUGGLE UNDER JAMES I BEFORE the death of Queen Elizabeth there were many indications that the nation was growing restless under the arbitrary practices which characterized Tudor absolutism. The bestowal of trade monopolies on private persons had been the subject of Parliamentary protest and the queen had promised relief; the custom of demanding freedom from arrest and liberty of speech for members had been fixed towards the close of her reign; and several times Commons had asserted the right of settling disputed election questions. Moreover, as we have seen, there were growing parties seeking to reform or subvert the Established Church, thus coming into conflict with the crown as the chief defender of the faith.

It was under such circumstances that James I ascended the throne of England. The number of members that attended the meeting of his first Parliament was itself an indication of the increasing interest of the country in political affairs and the harbinger of many a struggle to come. Unfortunately James was fitted neither by temper nor training for the task of governing at this time when tact and conciliation were indispensable to harmony, and at the very outset he initiated the quarrel which was destined to fill the seventeenth century with turmoil.

§ 1. James I and the Puritans 1

In the gray hours of morning, March 24, 1603, watch and ward was kept in London streets; and in all the neighboring

Trevelyan, England under the Stuarts, pp. 73 ff. By permission of G. M. Trevelyan, Esq., and G. P. Putnam's Sons, Publishers.

counties men who had much at stake in time of crisis wove uncertain plans to meet the thousand chances that day might bring. For the last and greatest of the Tudor race had at length turned away to die, like one of her old Plantagenet ancestry, in fierce mood of scorn for the world which her patient valor had led into the forward path. Her death would bring about one of those rare occasions when the platitudes of national loyalty and unity, which have imposed on secure men for a whole generation, are put to the test of the event. It would now be seen whether all was really as officials asserted it to be; whether the new England had been built to stand for ages; or whether, after all, the party of the old religion and society was large, united, and determined enough to bring down all in ruin.

When day broke two horsemen were far on the northern road, each spurring to forestall the other at Holyrood with homage impatiently expected by the first ruler of the British Isles. At a more leisurely pace the Elizabethan statesmen were riding in from Richmond, where their mistress lay dead, to Whitehall gate, where at ten in the morning they proclaimed King James I. By employing as their spokesman Robert Cecil, who personified the late queen's system in Church and State, the Lords of the Council showed themselves agreed that there should be no revolution. The decision was silently indorsed by a grateful nation. In city and manor house men laid aside their arms and breathed again. Fast as the news spread, all consented and most rejoiced. The Puritan sailors, who had taken out their ships to guard against Popish invasion from the Flemish coast, put back to port; and the borderers who kept watch on Naworth turrets, learned from their mild Catholic lord, Belted Will Howard, that, since England and Scotland had one king, the northern sky-line was no longer the territory of a foe. So the work of Elizabeth stood the test of real consent, and the English people invited the royal line of Scotland. to come and fill her place.

The first of these four Stuarts who have left their indelible negative impression upon England ushered in the tragedy of king and people with a pageant of royal progress from Berwick to London, which then excited to ecstasies the loyalty and curiosity of a simple nation, and has since, in the reflex light of all that followed, become a theme for the irony of historians. For a month of spring weather James rode south. The land seemed bursting into bud to welcome him, growing greener each day as the ever increasing train of courtiers wound slowly down out of