By the Convocation, the Church was virtually revolutionized. Bramhall dominated in the Upper House; and Wentworth, by the sheer force of brow-beating and intimidation, compelled the Lower House to yield to his wishes.1 One hundred canons-closely resembling those provided for South Britain in 1603-were framed and adopted. The very first of these canons sanctions the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. "We," it says, "do receive and approve the Book of Articles of Religion agreed upon by the archbishops and bishops and the whole clergy in the Convocation holden at London in the year of our Lord God 1562, for the avoiding of diversities of opinions, and for the establishing of consent touching true religion. And therefore, if any hereafter shall affirm that any of those Articles are in any part superstitious or erroneous, or such as he may not with a good conscience subscribe unto, let him be excommunicated, and not absolved before he make a public revocation of his error." Another of these canons breathes a still more contracted and exclusive spirit. "Whosoever shall separate themselves from the communion of saints, as it is approved by the Apostles' rules in the Church of Ireland, and combine themselves together in a new brotherhood-accounting the Christians who are conformable to the doctrine, government, rites, and ceremonies of the Church of Ireland to be profane and unmeet for them to join with in Christian profession-or shall affirm and maintain that there are within this realm other meetings, assemblies, or congregations than such as by the laws of this land are held and allowed, which may rightly challenge to themselves the name of true and lawful churches, let him be excommunicated, and not restored until he repent and publicly revoke his error." 2

According to the Act of Uniformity passed in the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, the Liturgy was to be read in Latin, when English was unintelligible to the congregation.

Charles I., chap. 3) from granting leases for a longer term than twenty-one years; and the leases were to be void if the reserved rents were not one half of the real value of such lands at the time of letting. See Swift's Arguments against Enlarging the Power of Bishops. Works, vol. v. 270. London, 1801.

1 See an account of his proceedings in Reid's Hist. of Presb. Church in Ireland, i. 171-174. See also Leland, iii. 28. 2 Canon V.

The absurdity of this provision was quite sufficient to secure its neglect; and the Book of Common Prayer, as well as the New Testament, had already been translated into Irish.1 Bedell exerted himself to good purpose to obtain the sanction of the Convocation for the religious instruction of the natives through the medium of their own tongue; and it is enacted in one of the canons 2 that "where all, or the most part of the people, are Irish," two copies of the Book of Common Prayer and of the Bible in the Irish tongue-one for the minister, and the other for the clerk-shall be provided, "as soon as they may be had," at the "common charge of the parish." No notice is taken in these canons of the Confession drawn up by Ussher in 1615, and hitherto acknowledged as the Creed of the Irish Establishment. The Primate himself fondly believed that it still maintained its authority; and that the English Articles were now merely advanced to a position of co-ordinate importance. But he was here outwitted by Wentworth and Bramhall. The silence of the canons in respect to the Calvinistic formulary, now nearly twenty years in use, was fatal to its claims; and thus it was quietly superseded.

The canons, ratified by royal approbation, were soon brought to bear on the Presbyterian ministers of Down and Antrim. Two of them had just been deposed by Bishop Echlin. It was noticed, as a singular providence, that the bishop survived the sentence only a few months. He was succeeded in the See of Down and Connor by Henry Leslie -a Scotchman of vigorous mind and considerable acquirements, but imperious and intolerant. Immediately after his consecration he silenced Livingston of Killinchy-one of the Presbyterian pastors whose labours had been eminently blessed. At his primary visitation, held at Lisburn in July 1636, the new bishop required the clergy present to subscribe the recently enacted canons; and many of them, who had hitherto been accustomed to the forms of Presbyterian

1 See before, vol i., p. 406, note (2).

2 Canon XCIV.

3 See Elrington's Life of Ussher, p. 176. It appears that afterwards Ussher required candidates for ordination to sign both the English and the Irish Articles.-Ibid.

worship, were most reluctantly obliged to pledge themselves to conformity. Five refused; and he endeavoured, in a private conference, to win them over to obedience. When his efforts at persuasion failed, he summoned his clergy to meet him in Belfast, and there challenged the five refractory preachers to a public disputation. They cheerfully responded to the call: Hamilton of Ballywalter, who had been a member of the Convocation, was selected by his companions. in trouble to conduct the debate: and, on the following day, the bishop and the Presbyterian minister discussed the points in dispute between them in presence of a large assemblycomposed of the nobility, gentry, and clergy of the diocese. The Bishop of Derry, who seems to have relied much on the controversial skill of Leslie, did not fail to attend on the occasion; and, for several hours, the conference was carried on in the parish church of the town with good temper and great vivacity. But Bramhall-who by this time had apparently discovered that the bishop was not likely to achieve the signal victory on which he had been calculating-at length became impatient; rudely interfered; and induced Leslie to adjourn the meeting. He meanwhile advised him not to resume the discussion, but to proceed at once to pass sentence on the nonconformists. On the following day the five ministers were accordingly deposed.2

These proceedings were exceedingly disheartening to the more zealous of the Presbyterian laity, as well as to the ministers. In the hope of enjoying liberty of conscience they had left their native Scotland; and now they saw that they were about to be deprived of freedom to worship God according to their cherished forms in the land of their adop

1 Reid, i. 202. Reid adds that these men "in the seclusion of their parishes continued to retain the former modes of worship, to which the people were so firmly attached."—Ibid. This statement is confirmed by Bishop Leslie himself, who, in a charge delivered at a visitation held at Lisburn in September 1638, complained "both of the clergy and of the laity for a general nonconformity and disobedience to the Church's orders." See Mant, i. 533.

2 The ministers deposed were Brice of Broadisland or Ballycarry, Ridge of Antrim, Cunningham of Holywood, Colvert of Oldstone, and Hamilton of Ballywalter. Reid, i. 190. Brice died before the sentence of deposition could be carried into effect. Reid, i. 203.

tion. Discouraged by this dark prospect, some of them proposed to emigrate to America. They forthwith built a small vessel; and, in the autumn of 1636, one hundred and forty emigrants, including several ministers, set sail from Belfast Lough for New England. But the winds and waves seemed to conspire against them; and, after having been nearly two months at sea, they were obliged to return, in a very shattered condition, to their port of departure. The ministers now preached to their people, as they had opportunity, in barns and dwelling-houses; but they were in constant danger of imprisonment, as their steps were tracked by watchful and malignant adversaries. About this time Wentworth erected in Dublin a court of High Commission; and thus Protestant nonconformists, as well as Romanists, were subjected to increased annoyance and persecution.2

North Britain now became an asylum for Presbyterian. ministers ejected from their livings in Ireland for nonconformity; and some of the more pious colonists from Scotland returned to their native country. The progress of events there soon issued in a crisis. In July 1637 an attempt to introduce an obnoxious Liturgy produced a riot in Edinburgh, and terminated in an ecclesiastical revolution. A bond known as "The National Covenant" was now prepared; nobles, gentry, ministers, and people subscribed it with enthusiasm; and the Presbyterians of Scotland, thus firmly united, proved an overmatch for the prelates and their courtly patrons. Almost all the Scotch bishops fled into England in dismay; 3 and the King was compelled to abandon the policy which he had so long cherished. By a General Assembly held at Glasgow towards the close of the year 1638, diocesan epis

1 Reid, i. 190, 204.

Leland, iii. 28.

3 About this time Archibald Adair, Bishop of Killala, was deprived of his See; and Maxwell, Bishop of Ross, in Scotland, who had fled into England, was appointed to the vacancy thus created. Adair had hesitated to admit Corbet, a Scotch Episcopalian, and the author of several scurrilous attacks on the Covenanters, to a rich living in his diocese. Adderton, or Atherton, Bishop of Waterford, one of the most violent enemies of Adair, was hanged on the Gallows Green, Dublin, on the 5th of December, 1640, for horrible crimes. Adair was now made Bishop of Waterford. He was uncle to Sir Robert Adair of Ballymena. See Reid, i. 264, 293; Clogy, pp. 133, 134; Cotton's Fasti, i. 128.

copacy was overturned, and Presbyterian Church government re-established.

The spirit evoked in Scotland quickly extended beyond its borders; and it soon became known to the Irish Privy Council that some of the colonists in Ulster had become Covenanters.1 Sir Robert Adair, the proprietor of an estate at Ballymena, in the county of Antrim, had attended the Glasgow Assembly in the capacity of a ruling elder; and had thus rendered himself specially odious to Leslie, Bishop of Down and Connor. Others in the north-eastern section of the province had also grievously offended the same right reverend dignitary. "All the Puritans in my diocese," says the bishop, "are confident that the arms raised against the King in Scotland will procure them a liberty to set up their own discipline here amongst ourselves; insomuch that many whom I had brought to some measure of conformity have revolted lately; and when I call them in question for it, they scorn my process. It grieveth my heart to hear how many who live in Scotland, coming over hither about matter of trade, do profess openly that they have signed the Covenant, and justify what they have done, as if the justice of this kingdom could not overtake them." 5

The intolerance of the bishops-stimulated to severity by an arbitrary Government-was not the only grievance of which the Scottish settlers in the North had to complain. Wentworth employed sharp-witted lawyers to examine the conditions in the grants made to them at the time of the Plantation of Ulster; and when any flaw, created by neglect

1 Mant, i. 537.

• The ancestor of the present proprietor of the Ballymena estate-Lord Waveney. 3 Mant, i. 527.

4 This is the language of an interested and bitter partizan, who could not give a candid account of the proceedings of his Presbyterian countrymen. Though they had exhibited a determination not to submit to civil and ecclesiastical despotism, they had not yet been obliged to have recourse to arms in defence of their liberties. But Charles was already preparing for war; and before this time had granted a secret commission to the Roman Catholic Earl of Antrim to raise troops for the invasion of Argyleshire. See Masson's Life of Milton, ii. 23.

5 Letter to the Lord Deputy, dated Lisnegarvie, 22nd September, 1638. Reid, i. 234, 235.