formity, which his moderate predecessor had suffered to go into neglect, and of new ecclesiastical ceremonies of his own device; in the exaltation of the sacerdotal character and power, and of the authority of the fathers of the early Church; and in the prohibition of the preaching of the doctrines of the Genevan Reformer. A few specimens of his administration may indicate its general tone.

April 18.

One Lilburne was arraigned before the Star-Chamber Court for publishing seditious writings. Refusing to an'swer on oath certain interrogatories designed to make him criminate himself, he was punished for contempt by being whipped and set in the pillory. From that stage he addressed the by-standers, and scattered pamphlets among them, for which new offence he was gagged, and imprisoned in irons.2 A book of a thousand pages in quarto, against the amusements of the theatre and the ball-room, written by William Prynne, a barrister, had been licensed for publication by Abbot's chaplain.3 It came to Laud's knowledge, who thought he detected in it some allusion to the king and queen. He certainly might have read in it some sharp animadversions on the hierarchy, and on his own recent innovations in the ritual; and at his instance Prynne was sentenced by the Star-Chamber Court to be degraded from the bar, to stand in the pillory at two places in London and lose an ear at each, to be branded on the forehead, to pay a fine of five thousand

1 It is now known- what at the time could only be surmised that negotiations were carried on by Windebank, Secretary of State, and Cottington, First Lord of the Treasury, with Panzani, the Papal nuncio in London, for a reconciliation of the English Church with that of Rome, and the acknowledgment of a sort of supremacy of the Holy See; a measure to which as Panzani

1634.

Feb. 7.

was informed, but perhaps without good authority Laud, with other prelates, was prepared to be a party. See Hallam, Constitutional History, &c., Chap. VIII.

2 Rushworth, Collections, &c., II. 466.

3 It was entitled "Histrio-Mastix, the Players' Scourge, or Actors' Tragedie," &c.

pounds, and to be imprisoned for life.'

1637. June 14.

1630.

2

Prynne em

ployed his prison leisure in another essay of the same kind, for which he had to submit his ears a second time to the hangman's knife, to be branded on both cheeks, and to pay another fine of the same amount. Burton, a clergyman, and Bastwick, a physician, both men of honorable repute, now suffered with him the same mutilation and fine, for what were called schismatical libels upon the ritual and government of the Church. Leighton, a Scotchman, for a simiNovember. lar offence, was sentenced to be severely whipped twice, to be set in the pillory, to have his nose slit, his cheeks branded, and his ears cut off, and then to be imprisoned for life.3 A person named Allinson, convicted of reporting that the Archbishop of York had solicited the king for some toleration to the Catholics, was fined a thousand pounds, whipped, set in the pillory in four different towns, and bound to good behavior for life.4

1634.

1C37.

Laud aimed at a higher quarry. Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, formerly Lord Keeper, had abandoned his arbitrary principles, and provoked the displeasure of the primate, whose early patron he had been. On some trifling pretence that he had attempted to suborn eviJuly. dence, he was sentenced in the Star-Chamber Court to suspension from his episcopal duties, to a fine of ten thousand pounds, and to committal to the Tower during the king's pleasure." The officers employed to levy the fine found in Williams's house some letters, thrown by as waste-paper. One of them, addressed to him by the master of Westminster School, contained references to "a little hocus-pocus," and "a little urchin." On the presumption that this language denoted Laud, the Bishop

1 Rushworth, Collections, &c., II.

220-233.

2 Ibid., 382.

3 Ibid., 57.

4 Ibid., 269.

5 Ibid., 416-449.

1639.

was sentenced to pay eight thousand pounds more, and the writer of the letter ten thousand pounds, besides having his ears nailed to a pillory set February. up in front of his school, and then being imprisoned during the king's pleasure.' Impudent abuses of the criminal law were paraded to the view of all classes of Englishmen, to break them down by terror into unconditional submission to the arbitrary will of courtiers, and so to the ulterior despotic projects of the court.

As yet there had been no effectual check to the downward tendency of things. Without the combination of a Parliament, the patriotic party was powerless against the parasites of the council-chamber, the tribunals, and the Church, and against the "divinity doth hedge a king." There remained only the hope that an exchequer still unprovided, after all the illegal expedients that had been used, would sooner or later compel the infatuated monarch to convene the estates of his realm. But the hope, long deferred, had as yet little to reanimate it, when an event occurred, but for which, in the opinion of wise judges, the liberties of Englishmen might for an indefinite period have remained prostrate on their own soil.

No object was nearer to the hearts of the king and the Archbishop than to establish the episcopal hierarchy and ritual in Scotland, in uniformity with the system of the southern kingdom, and to the exclusion of the outbreak at Presbyterian order, which had been rooted in Edinburgh. Scotland since the time of John Knox. It is not within the purpose of this work to rehearse the measures which had been pursued with that aim. The day arrived on which a liturgy, prepared by Laud and other prelates, and only differing from the English service-book in a nearer resemblance to the Romish July 23, missal, was appointed to be used in the great church

1637.

2 Hume, Chap. LIII.; Hallam, Constitutional History, Chap. VIII.

of St. Giles in Edinburgh. The vast space, now divided among four churches, was filled with anxious and angry men and women. The Chancellor and others of the Privy Council, the two archbishops and other bishops of Scotland, the dignitaries of the law, and the magistrates of Edinburgh, were present in their robes. The Dean of St. Giles's began the service. Instantly an outcry arose about the mass, the Pope, and Antichrist. A woman, Jenny Geddes by name, threw a stool at the Dean's head,' which scarcely missed him. A shower of stones and cudgels followed. The Bishop of Edinburgh mounted the pulpit, but could get no hearing. The magistrates, commanded by the chancellor to interpose, succeeded in ejecting the most noisy of the rioters. But the service. was with difficulty concluded, amidst the hooting of those within, and the breaking of windows from the street; and the prelates were reviled and pelted as they passed on foot from the church, -the Bishop of Edinburgh, it was said, being placed in peril of his life. The Lord Privy Seal, who, later in the day, conveyed the Bishop in his coach, was scarcely protected by a party of armed ser

vants.

Though as yet there was no proof that any persons of consequence had patronized this violence, the court thought it unsafe to repeat the experiment till the temper of Scotland should be ascertained and soothed. But as time passed, and credible indications showed that the delay was only for the advantage of better opportunity,

insurrection

the excitement was renewed, and now manifested itself over a wider extent and in a more elevated sphere. There was a great resort to Edinburgh. The populace, Spread of the in chase of the Bishop of Galloway, clamored at in Scotland. the door of the chamber where the Privy Council October. were met, and threatened to force an entrance; and the City Council had to apply to some popular noblemen for protection. Petitions began to come in, each set bearing signatures of more consideration than the last.

The king's fierce obstinacy, or evil fate, made him immovable against the representations urged by his own creatures as to the critical state of affairs; and before long he had to hear that an extra-constitutional government was set up, consisting of four houses, called The Tables. They were composed respectively of nobles, of gentry, of clergymen, and of burgesses. The movement was no longer an aimless tumult of "base and unruly people"; it was henceforward to be conducted with equal dignity, order, address, and energy. The "Covenant"-the first fruit of the new combination was subscribed with enthusiasm by persons of both sexes and all ranks throughout the kingdom. Crowds pressed into the churchyards of Edinburgh and Glasgow, to affix their names to it in characters traced with their blood on parchment spread out upon gravestones. It bound them together "until death," in resistance to religious usurpation.

1638.

The mining and countermining of state contests succeeded; - reluctant, insufficient, and suspected concessions on the king's part, more comprehensive and resolute demands on the other. At length his malignant