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king, while it completely disproves the notion that the English were not sensible of the superior nature of their government, and that they were now merely inflamed with bigotted rage against a few unmeaning ceremonies introduced into the public worship, a notion altogether irreconcileable, not only with the temper of this assembly, but of every parliament which had been summoned during the dynasty of the Stuarts,

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Ratcliffe

Sir George Ratcliffe, the former fellow-sufferer Sir George with Strafforde for refusing the loan, but since committed. his instrument and coadjutor in all arbitrary ways, was likewise charged with high treason *.

against the

money, &c,

As ship-money was voted to be illegal, so gen- Proceedings eral resolutions were passed, that the judges who judges, &c, had acted in that business, together with the lieu- for shiptenants, &c. of counties, should be prosecuted for their presumption, and be liable in damages to the parties injured. Against some of the judges regular impeachments were brought, both on this and other accounts; Berkley was charged with high treason and arrested on the bench: The lieutenants had only to complain that the threat of prosecution impended over them; and the proceeding has been unqualifiedly condemned-because the duty had been imposed upon them: But some of them were themselves privy counsellors, and consequently to a certain extent primarily accessory to the unlawful tax, while they ought to have resigned their places rather than comply with an

* Old Parl. Hist. vol. ix. p. 51, 153, et seq. Cobbet's do.vol. ii. p. 698, et seq.

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unjust command against the community. The king himself is protected by law as incapable of doing wrong, and unless the servant were responsible, there could be no check upon the executive, while it is evident that, without unjust ministers, the monarch's acts could scarcely be injurious. On the same principles, the farmers of the customs were ordered to be prosecuted; and they compounded for their extortions, by paying £150,000. The various tyrannical sentences of the Star-Chamber and High-Commission courts, were resolved by the commons to be illegal; and it having been farther resolved, that reparation should be made to the sufferers out of the delinquent's estates, the cases were transmitted to the Lords, by whom the sentences were reversed †. It was likewise resolved by both houses that, the convocation has no power to make canons, or impose taxes without the intervention of the legislature, that both on that account, and from their abstract tendency, the late proceedings were against the fundamental laws of the realm; and that the members of the convocation were liable to punishment. A bill to that effect was ordered, and immediately brought into the lower house ‡.

Journ. 12th February, 1641.

*Whitelocke, p. 40. + Clarendon, vol. i. p. 181. Journ. of 8th and 22d December, 1640. 20th April, 1641. 20th May. Clarendon, who does justice to Bastwick's Latin style, says, that he was unknown to either university or the college of physicians; but there is an express order of the commons, 11th June, to restore him to the college of physicians. Cob. Parl. Hist. vol. ii. p. 671-700. Rush. vol. ii. p. 469.

Journ, 16th December,

ment of

Pierce, and

Other ecclesiastics besides Laud fell under the Impeachanimadversion of the commons, and were ordered Wren, to be impeached,-as Wren, bishop of Ely; Pierce, Cozens. bishop of Bath and Wells; and Dr. Cozens. The two first were informed against for many high crimes and misdemeanours,-practising and enforcing superstition and idolatry, and persecuting all who did not join in their innovations. They were therefore ordered to give bail for L.10,000 to stand trial. Cozens was charged with a variety of articles to the following effect: he removed the communion-table from its old situation in the body of the church, and placed it in the east end altar-wise,-an alteration on which he expended L.200 of the public money entrusted to him: He restored, and got gloriously painted, images which had been defaced by the commission under Elizabeth: He officiated at the sacrament with his back to the people, according to the popish practice; had boys with tapers, and all the bows of the Romish superstition, used in the sacrifice of the mass; had a consecrated knife, which he would not permit to be defiled to profane uses, for cutting the communion bread; had declared that the reformers, when they took away the mass, took away all good order, and instead of a reformed, made a deformed religion: He had so pertinaciously insisted upon the people bowing to the altar, &c. that when some ladies omitted the cere

* Id. p. 194, 24th December. Cobbet's Parl. Hist. vol. ii. p. 682,

mony, he called them whores, jades, and pagans, and quitting his place, laid violent hands on them, in the face of the congregation, and rent their clothes: He had converted several prayers in the liturgy into hymns, to be sung to the organ, and had neglected psalms: One Candlemas day, he had lighted up three hundred wax candles in honour of our lady, threescore of which he had placed on and about the altar: Before his marriage, he had worn a white satin cope, which he laid aside when he took a wife: He had denied the royal supremacy, having declared, that the king had no more power over the church than the boy who rubbed his horse's heels; and had aggravated all these superstitions, and the denial of the supremacy, by the most cruel persecution-particularly against Smart, a prebend, and likewise against one of the canons *.

Old Parl. Hist. vol. ix. p. 193. Cobbet's Do. vol. ii. p. 725. Rush. vol. iv. p. 208. See his case in Howel's State Trials, vol. iv. As Cozens was appointed chaplain to the royal family abroad during the life of Charles, it is clear that he (Charles) meant to make no concession to the popular wish, though it appears by his Letters that he adhered to Episcopacy from political motives alone. Clar. State Papers, vol. ii. A petition was presented against Dr. Layfield, and the facts are said by the report of the committee to be fully proved. It sets forth, that he had placed the communion-table altar-wise, and raised ten rails, with ten several images upon those rails, to be set at the altar; that he bowed three times, 1st, At his going to the rails; 2dly, Within the rails; 3dly, At the table; and so in the return. But that after the images were taken down, he bowed only twice,-at the rails and the table," which is an argument that he bowed before to the images." That he caused J. H. S. to be set in gold letters upon the table, and forty places besides: and said to the people, "Heretofore, we saw Christ by faith; but now with our fleshly eyes we see him in

against

Episcopacy had, at the Reformation, been de- Petition clared to be a human institution, under the appoint- Episcopacy, ment, as well as controul, of the throne; but the &c. whole endeavour of the government lately, had been to make the hierarchy appear a divine institution, independent of civil authority; and this doctrine, as it inflamed a party on religious grounds, raised a powerful addition to it even from amongst those who neither were puritans nor inimical to the court. These, perceiving the principle on which the prelates and their supporters advanced the pretension, naturally opposed it, as destructive both of civil and religious liberty; and the cruel tyranny of the bishops, with the new ceremonies which they so intolerantly enforced, incalculably augmented the number of such as desired the abolition of episcopacy. Had it been the policy of government to make some concessions to the popular wish, or had it even abstained from innovation, the hierarchy would, in all probability, have run no hazard; but when men saw no security for their faith in the establishment, and found it necessary to make a vigorous opposition, they naturally became hostile to an institution which,

the sacrament." That he charged the people with sacrilege for taking down the images: That he caused one Boulton to be excommunicated for not coming up to the rails, and refused to read his absolution," &c. "That he said they are black toads, spotted toads, and venomous toads, like Jack Straw and Watt Tyler, that speak against the ceremonies of the church; and that they were in the state of damnation." "He tells them, they must confess their sins, he is their parson, and they ought to do as he advises them; the sin is his, not theirs," &c. Journ. 25th November, 1640.

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