the Bishops were reserved and placed under trustees for the support of the Christian ministry. From that source, according to the Act, salaries and augmentation of salaries were to be supplied; so that every minister should eventually receive £100 a year. The sum of £18,000 per annum was at once to be raised for this purpose, and £2,000 per annum was added for increasing the maintenance of the masterships of colleges.1

The Council of State and the House of Commons found it hard work to defend their authority. To silence groans of discontent, uttered in divers publications, they had recourse to the common expedient of revolutionary governments, and passed an Act against the licentiousness of the press. The army discontents also rose alarmingly around the new rulers. Levellers, with their wild schemes, were very busy. A trooper, described as a religious man "of excellent parts and much beloved," but tinctured strongly with fifth monarchy notions, had to be shot for his share in a mutiny. Yet, such was the view taken of his case by the people, that at his funeral, "the corpse was adorned with bundles of rosemary one-half stained in blood." Sea green and black ribbons were tied to the hats and breasts of the thousands who followed the coffin rank and file; and many even of the better sort met the procession at the churchyard.' It was a serious sign of disaffection for so many persons to shew sympathy with a leveller.

But the opposition made in the pulpit to the new

Burford, Oxon., and some of the glebe land on W. Lenthall, Esq., now Speaker, and his heirs."Parry, 504.

1 Scobell, 40. One hundred pounds a year at that time was a large salary. It must have been as good

as five hundred now, seeing that Sir Henry Slingsby kept an establishment of thirty servants on £500 per annum.-Brodie's British Empire, iv. 245.

2 Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, i. 435. Whitelocke, 399.

rulers constituted a still more formidable difficulty. Presbyterian preachers, who at the beginning of the war had defended the army, could not be silent, now that the war had led to results so very different from what they had contemplated. No wonder then that many of them denounced what had been done at Westminster and Whitehall. They accused the usurpers of blood-guiltiness, and regarded the High Court of Justice as "framing iniquity by law." They held themselves bound, they said, in duty to God, religion, the King, the Parliament, and the kingdom, to profess before angels and men, that they verily believed the taking away the life of Charles was opposed to the teaching of the Bible, and the spirit of the Protestant religion. The whole business they declared to be inconsistent with the oath of allegiance, and contrary to the solemn League and Covenant. Accordingly, they prayed for the Prince of Wales as Charles II. Mr. Cawton, a Presbyterian minister, did so before the Lord Mayor of London. While all this is not to be wondered at, and the men who so acted for conscience' sake are commendable for their courage, it is no matter of surprise that the new government, in self-defence, 'should strive to put an end to such dangerous proceedings. Therefore, in March, an Act appeared, forbidding ministers in their pulpits to meddle with affairs of State, or to hold correspondence with foreign powers. They were ordered to apply themselves simply to the preaching of the Gospel for the edification of their hearers.1

It became necessary for Parliament to vindicate its conduct. It did so, and, in the declaration published with that view, passages appear relating to religion, in

1 Parl. Hist., iii. 1305.

which is recapitulated what had been accomplished in the way of reformation; and desires are avowed for the furtherance of the same object. The rulers profess their wish to suppress Popery, superstition, blasphemy, and profaneness; but they also express their desire to remove such acts and ordinances as coerce conscience," which have been made use of for snares, burdens, and vexations to the truly sincere-hearted people of God, that fear Him and wait for the coming of His Son Jesus Christ." This last clause of course would please the army. The sheets containing it, wet from the press, would be despatched to the camp, and eagerly would soldiers gather round some comrade sitting by his tent door, to read the new proclamation. The millenarian leveller would take comfort from these words, whether they were meant for him or not. But what would the Presbyterians think? The next sentence seems intended to soothe their fears —and, if it did so, it would rouse alarm in the minds of extreme men, just elated by the tenor of the preceding paragraph. "And because we are not ignorant how injuriously our proceedings herein are charged upon us, as if we were setting up and countenancing an universal toleration, when our true aim in the liberty we give is only the necessary encouragement we conceive due to all that are lovers of God, and the purity and power of religion, we can and do therefore declare, in the sight of God and man, that by whomsoever we shall find this liberty abused, we shall be most ready to testify our displeasure and abhorrency thereof by a strict and effectual proceeding against such offenders." Here the countenance of the Presbyterian would brighten, and that of the wild sectary would fall.

1 Parl. Hist., iii. 1323, et seq.

As protestations and covenants had been the order of the day, a new test of obedience was now contrived under the name of an Engagement. The security of the State demanded something of the kind, for authority cannot exist without allegiance. Reference to religion is indeed avoided in the Engagement, and by the terms used in it no spiritual supremacy whatever is claimed; Presbyterians nevertheless considered the new oath to be inconsistent with their Covenant engagements; and, taking this view, they gave a religious character to that which had been carefully framed in order to prevent any such construction. The new political test appeared to them a snare to catch consciences, and a sword to wound them. Transformed into an anti-covenant pledge, it kindled throughout England the fire of a fierce indignation.

On the 22nd of February, 1649-50, the House passed a law for the better propagation of the gospel in Wales, and on the 8th of March, another for the better advancement of religion and learning in Ireland. The latter provided for the maintenance of seminaries in and near the city of Dublin. Archiepiscopal manors and lands were vested in trustees for the use of Trinity College, and for the erection and maintenance of a free-school; the appointment of governors and masters being vested in the Lord Lieutenant; and the trustees, with his consent, having authority given them to make rules and ordinances subject to confirmation by Parliament.' The same month saw a statute for the more frequent preaching of the gospel, and for the better maintenance of ministers in the city of Bristol.2

In the spring of 1650, Parliament resumed the question of ministerial support, and a new Act was

passed for pious uses,1 for the augmentation of livings and for the payment of heads of houses in the Universities; £80 per annum being specially provided for "the Margaret Lecturer of Oxford."

Other characteristic instances of religious and moral legislation appear in the statute book for the year 1650. By virtue of an Act passed the 19th of April, penalties were to be levied for the desecration of the Sabbath, and for the non-observance of thanksgiving and humiliation days. Seasons of both kinds were put on a level, which was a position of things not at all consistent with puritan ideas of the Divine authority of the Lord's day, Goods cried in the streets at such times were liable to seizure ; travellers and waggoners, if they performed a journey during the hours of holy rest, were to be fined ten shillings. Writs and warrants executed on a Sunday were to lose their effect, and persons serving them were exposed to the payment of a fine of five pounds. Nobody was to use a boat, a horse, a coach, or a sedan, except for going to church, upon pain of forfeiting ten shillings. The like penalty was to fall on those who visited taverns and alehouses. Authority was given to officers to search for offenders, and justices and constables were made liable to penalties if they neglected their duties. The Act was to be read in all the churches yearly upon the first Lord's day in the month of March.2

Profane cursing and swearing were prohibited by an Act passed the 28th of June, with a curiously graduated scale of penalties, arranged according to the rank of the offender. A lord was to be fined thirty shillings; a baronet or knight, twenty; an esquire, ten; a simple gentleman was to pay six and eight-pence, and people of inferior

1 April 5, 1650. Scobell, 111.

2 Ibid., 119.