a far wider view of civil affairs than his brethren, to exert himself according to her peremptory command for universal conformity. But it is not easy to reconcile the whole of his conduct to this supposition; and in the copious memorials of Strype, we find the archbishop rather exciting the queen to rigorous measures against the puritans than standing in need of her admonition.284
Conformity enforced by the archbishop against the disposition of others.—The unsettled state of exterior religion which has been mentioned lasted till 1565. In the beginning of that year a determination was taken by the queen, or rather perhaps the archbishop, to put a stop to all irregularities in the public service. He set forth a book called Advertisements, containing orders and regulations for the discipline of the clergy. This modest title was taken in consequence of the queen's withholding her sanction of its appearance through Leicester's influence.285 The primate's next step was to summon before the ecclesiastical commission Sampson, Dean of Christchurch, and Humphrey, President of Magdalen College, Oxford, men of signal non-conformity, but at the same time of such eminent reputation that, when the law took its course against them, no other offender could hope for indulgence. On refusing to wear the customary habits, Sampson was deprived of his deanery; but the other seems to have been tolerated.286 This instance of severity, as commonly happens, rather irritated than intimidated the puritan clergy, aware of their numbers, their popularity, and their powerful friends, but above all sustained by their own sincerity and earnestness. Parker had taken his resolution to proceed in the vigorous course he had begun. He obtained from the queen a proclamation, peremptorily requiring conformity in the use of the clerical vestments and other matters of discipline. The London ministers, summoned before himself and their bishop, Grindal, who did not very willingly co-operate with his metropolitan, were called upon for a promise to comply with the legal ceremonies, which thirty-seven out of ninety-eight refused to make. They were in consequence suspended from their ministry, and their livings put in sequestration. But these unfortunately, as was the case in all this reign, were the most conspicuous, both for their general character and for their talent in preaching.287
Whatever deviations from uniformity existed within the pale of the Anglican church, no attempt had hitherto been made to form separate assemblies; nor could it be deemed necessary, while so much indulgence had been conceded to the scrupulous clergy. But they were now reduced to determine whether the imposition of those rites they disliked would justify, or render necessary, an abandonment of their ministry. The bishops of that school had so far overcome their repugnance, as not only to observe the ceremonies of the church, but, in some instances, to employ compulsion towards others.288 A more unexceptionable, because more disinterested, judgment was pronounced by some of the Swiss reformers to whom our own paid great respect—Beza, Gualter, and Bullinger; who, while they regretted the continuance of a few superfluous rites, and still more the severity used towards good men, dissuaded their friends from deserting their vocation on that account. Several of the most respectable opponents of the ceremonies were equally adverse to any open schism.289 But the animosities springing from heated zeal, and the smart of what seemed oppression, would not suffer the English puritans generally to acquiesce in such temperate counsels. They began to form separate conventicles in London, not ostentatiously indeed, but of course without the possibility of eluding notice. It was doubtless worthy of much consideration, whether an established church-government could wink at the systematic disregard of its discipline by those who were subject to its jurisdiction and partook of its revenues. And yet there were many important considerations derived from the posture of religion and of the state, which might induce cool-headed men to doubt the expediency of too much straightening the reins. But there are few, I trust, who can hesitate to admit that the puritan clergy, after being excluded from their benefices, might still claim from a just government a peaceful toleration of their particular worship. This it was vain to expect from the queen's arbitrary spirit, the imperious humour of Parker, and that total disregard of the rights of conscience which was common to all parties in the sixteenth century. The first instance of actual punishment inflicted on protestant dissenters was in June 1567, when a company of more than one hundred were seized during their religious exercises at Plummer's Hall, which they had hired on pretence of a wedding, and fourteen or fifteen of them were sent to prison.290 They behaved on their examination with a rudeness as well as self-sufficiency, that had already begun to characterise the puritan faction. But this cannot excuse the fatal error of molesting men for the exercise of their own religion.
These coercive proceedings of the archbishop were feebly seconded, or directly thwarted, by most leading men both in church and state. Grindal and Sandys, successively Bishops of London and Archbishops of York, were naturally reckoned at this time somewhat favourable to the non-conforming ministers, whose scruples they had partaken. Parkhurst and Pilkington, Bishops of Norwich and Durham, were openly on their side.291 They had still more effectual support in the queen's council. The Earl of Leicester, who possessed more power than any one to sway her wavering and capricious temper, the Earls of Bedford, Huntingdon, and Warwick, regarded as the steadiest protestants among the aristocracy, the wise and grave Lord Keeper Bacon, the sagacious Walsingham, the experienced Sadler, the zealous Knollys, considered these objects of Parker's severity, either as demanding a purer worship than had been established in the church, or at least as worthy by their virtues and services of more indulgent treatment.292 Cecil himself, though on intimate terms with the archbishop, and concurring generally in his measures, was not far removed from the latter way of thinking, if his natural caution and extreme dread at this juncture of losing the queen's favour had permitted him more unequivocally to express it. Those whose judgment did not incline them towards the puritan notions, respected the scruples of men in whom the reformed religion could so implicitly confide. They had regard also to the condition of the church. The far greater part of its benefices were supplied by conformists of very doubtful sincerity, who would resume their mass-books with more alacrity than they had cast them aside.293 Such a deficiency of protestant clergy had been experienced at the queen's accession, that for several years it was a common practice to appoint laymen, usually mechanics, to read the service in vacant churches.294 These were not always wholly illiterate; or if they were, it was no more than might be said of the popish clergy, the vast majority of whom were destitute of all useful knowledge, and could read little Latin.295 Of the two universities, Oxford had become so strongly attached to the Romish side during the late reign, that, after the desertion or expulsion of the most zealous of that party had almost emptied several colleges, it still for many years abounded with adherents to the old religion.296 But at Cambridge, which had been equally popish at the queen's accession, the opposite faction soon acquired the ascendant. The younger students, imbibing ardently the new creed of ecclesiastical liberty, and excited by puritan sermons, began to throw off their surplices, and to commit other breaches of discipline, from which it might be inferred that the generation to come would not be less apt for innovation than the present.297
A more determined opposition, about 1570, led by Cartwright.—The first period in the history of puritanism includes the time from the queen's accession to 1570, during which the retention of superstitious ceremonies in the church had been the sole avowed ground of complaint. But when these obnoxious rites came to be enforced with unsparing rigour, and even those who voluntarily renounced the temporal advantages of the establishment were hunted from their private conventicles, they began to consider the national system of ecclesiastical regimen as itself in fault, and to transfer to the institution of episcopacy that dislike they felt for some of the prelates. The ostensible founder of this new school (though probably its tenets were by no means new to many of the sect) was Thomas Cartwright, the Lady Margaret's professor of divinity at Cambridge. He began about 1570 to inculcate the unlawfulness of any form of church-government, except what the apostles had instituted, namely, the presbyterian. A deserved reputation for virtue, learning, and acuteness, an ardent zeal, an inflexible self-confidence, a vigorous, rude, and arrogant style, marked him as the formidable leader of a religious faction.298 In 1572 he published his celebrated Admonition to the Parliament, calling on that assembly to reform the various abuses subsisting in the church. In this treatise, such a hardy spirit of innovation was displayed, and schemes of ecclesiastical policy so novel and extraordinary were developed, that it made a most important epoch in the contest, and rendered its termination far more improbable. The hour for liberal concessions had been suffered to pass away; the archbishops' intolerant temper had taught men to question the authority that oppressed them,