[590] On the 18th of February the House resolved to go into Committee on the following day.

[591] Parl. Hist., iv. 535–542. Kennet, Rapin, Burnet, and Neal give very unsatisfactory accounts of the debate. Burnet's account is inaccurate.

[592] The Commonwealth's-man, Colonel Birch, spoke on the subject, but it does not appear that he advocated any broad measure of religious liberty.

[593] Parl. Hist., iv. 552–553. The Journals under date contain the Resolutions.

[594] There are remarks on this Bill written by Mr. John Humphrey in Baxter's Life, iii. 144.

[595] Parl. Hist., iv. 571–574.

[596] Parliament was adjourned on the 29th of March, to the 20th of October; then prorogued to the 27th, and again on the 4th of November to the 7th of January, 1674.

[597] Parl. Hist. iv. 553–6.

[598] Lingard (xii. 27) states the fact on the authority of the French Ambassador (Dalrymple, ii. App. 90), and the motives on the authority of Marvell, i. 494.

[599] Parl. Hist. iv. 561, March 12.

[600] Lord Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors, iv. 181.

[601] Burnet, i. 348.

[602] Life of Calamy, i. 102.

[603] Journals, Feb. 24, March 8. After the Declaration had been withdrawn the old licenses gave much trouble. "The present favour which I beg of you is, your sense about Conventicles and meetings, for I am in the Commission of Peace for the University and Town of Cambridge, and am threatened by some busy informers with the penalty of £100, which you know the Act enjoins, if I grant not warrants upon complaint against them. Now I beseech you to write by the first post, or let Mr. Ball, or some of your people write to me what you know to be His Majesty's sense in this particular, whether we should grant warrants to suppress them, they having license to preach and meet."—State Papers, April 5, 1673. Mr. Carr to Sir J. Williamson.

The mayor of Weymouth wrote to Sir J. Williamson (Nov. 21, 1674), informing him that certain persons accused of keeping a Conventicle had pleaded His Majesty's "License and Warrant." He asks for direction how "to manage this affair."

[604] Dalrymple (Memoirs, iii. 92) remarks: "Charles' Declaration of Indulgence has been commonly imputed to the intrigues of France with Charles for the purpose of serving the interest of Popery. But Colbert's despatches show that France had not the least hand in it, that it was a scheme of Buckingham and Shaftesbury to gain the Dissenters, and that France was the cause of Charles' recalling it." The letters printed in Dalrymple indicate that Buckingham and Shaftesbury had strongly supported the Declaration, and show further that Charles wished Louis XIV. to believe that to please him he withdrew it. "He assured me," says Colbert, "that your Majesty's sentiments had always more power over him than all the reasonings of his most faithful Ministers." March 20, 1673.

[605] "All Sectaries," says Reresby (Memoirs, 174), "now publicly repaired to their meetings and Conventicles, nor could all the laws afterwards, and the most rigorous execution of them, ever suppress these Separatists, or bring them to due conformity."

[606] Where Owen's Church met has been regarded as uncertain, but the returns made in 1667 to Sheldon's inquiries specify the place of meeting at that time as White's Alley.

[607] Afterwards Lord Haversham.

[608] See Anecdotes of Mrs. Bendish in Noble's Memoirs of the Protectoral House of Cromwell, ii. 329.

[609] Life, by Sir H. Ashurst, 27.

[610] Ibid., 100.

[611] He wished to be made a Justice of the Peace; but his appointment was opposed by Sir John Petties, a moderate Churchman, who remarks in a letter dated January 4, 1674–5—there are a "sort of men in this kingdom so hot and fiery, so active and inexperienced, who labour much in those things which tend to the disquiet of the kingdom (of whom we have a great share in our county), and are almost as dangerous as the other two sorts of Dissenters (Romanists and Nonconformists), for by their indiscreet and hot endeavours, instead of suppressing those Dissenters, I dare say that they (though unwittingly and unwillingly) give them the greatest animation and increase."

[612] There are numerous letters belonging to this period in the State Paper Office, written by Bowen. Letters dated 1675, Jan. 15; Feb. 17, 19, 24, furnish what I have said, and a great deal more. It appears from the following extract, as well as from a former one, that Nonconformists did not always meekly submit to their oppressors. In reading the letter, however, it must be remembered that an enemy writes it. "John Faucet had disturbed the Presbyterians at worship in the Granary—and, in consequence, was violently assaulted, beaten, and trodden upon by several rude persons, and in great danger of his life."

(Norwich, Dec. 11, 1674, Thomas Corie.)

A similar complaint is made by Bowen of the treatment of a constable who disturbed a meeting at Yarmouth.

[613] Sheldon sent letters to the Bishops of his province making fresh inquiries about Dissenters.—Neal, iv. 467.

[614] Neal, iv. 464.

[615] Baxter spent an immense amount of subtle casuistry upon the subject of the declaration, and actually put such a forced meaning upon it, that he said there was nothing in it to be refused!—Life and Times, iii. 168.

[616] Parl. Hist., iv. 714. See Locke's Letter, Ibid., Appendix, xlvii.; Calamy's Life, i. 79.

[617] Life and Times, iii. 109.

[618] Life and Times, 156.

[619] Ibid., 110, 131.

[620] Ibid., 156. For notices of Morley's character, see p. 477 of this volume.

[621] The well-known letter of Tillotson to Baxter is an interesting record of the result of their well-meant endeavours:—"I took the first opportunity," he says, "after you were with us, to speak to the Bishop of Salisbury, who promised to keep the matter private, and only to acquaint the Bishop of Chester with it in order to a meeting; but, upon some general discourse, I plainly perceived several things could not be obtained. However, he promised to appoint a time of meeting, but I have not heard from him since. I am unwilling my name should be used in this matter; not but that I do most heartily desire an accommodation, and shall always endeavour it, but I am sure it will be a prejudice to me, and signify nothing to the effecting of the thing, which as circumstances are, cannot pass in either House without the concurrence of a considerable part of the Bishops, and the countenance of His Majesty, which at present I see little reason to expect." Dated April 11, 1675. Baxter's Life and Times, iii. 157.

[622] Parl. Hist., iv. 741.

[623] State Papers, November 8.

[624] State Papers, 1676. Bowen to Williamson. February 21.

[625] State Papers, 1676, July 7, 10. The following is a specimen of the kind of stories which this man sent up to London:—"Last night the three informers that have put by our meetings here were amongst several of the passengers in a passage-boat going for Norwich, where they were no sooner placed but some of our Independents called out to the passengers and told them they had informing rogues amongst them, and surely they would not take such rascals with them; upon which the passengers began to leave the boat. So the boatmen, to keep their passengers, turned the informers out upon the key [quay]—where, when they were landed, they began to throw stones at them, but making their escape, they came to my house, upon which I went down to the key [quay], and there learned who some of them were, and gave the informers their names, who are since bound over to the sessions." State Papers, 1676, July 12.

[626] State Papers, October 9.

[627] Harl. Misc., viii. 7. Lives of the Norths, i. 316, et seq., see Notes. Knight's Popular Hist., iv. 326.

[628] Wood, iv. 226.

[629] Owen writes very guardedly in reply to Parker's doctrine of the magistrates' power.—Works, xxi. 209, et seq.

[630] Life and Times, iii. 42.

[631] Anthony Wood. There is plenty of satire in the two books by Marvell; the second is more cutting than the first, but it is sometimes coarser, and on the whole wearisome to modern readers.

[632] This tract is printed in Somers' Collection, iii. 329, 388. My own judgment of it agrees with Mr. Hallam's:—"It is not written with extraordinary ability; but it is very candid and well designed, though conceding so much as to scandalize his brethren."—Const. Hist. ii. 93.

Marvell, in his Mr. Smirke on the Divine in Mode, speaks of the work as having been originally printed only for members of Parliament, and not published, but that a printer got hold of it, and "surreptitiously" multiplied copies without the author's knowledge. Yet the published edition, though commencing with the words, "An humble petition to the Right Honourable the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled," contains an address "to the reader" at the beginning, and another to the Nonconformists at the end.

[633] Mr. Smirke, or the Divine in Mode. By Andrew Marvell.

[634] Marvell's Mr. Smirke, which was an answer to Turner's animadversions.—Baxter's Life and Times, iii. 175. Three other books, bearing the title of Naked Truth, headed respectively the second, third, and fourth parts, were published afterwards, but not by Bishop Croft.

[635] Numerous letters in the Record Office show the prevalence in 1667 of rumours respecting the King's design to bring in Popery. For example:—

"Fanatics in the North, being disappointed of assistance from abroad by the peace set up, then rest on their friends' behalf, that the King is a Papist, and intends to set up the Popish religion, and have so far possessed not only fanatics, but several of the ignorant common people with this opinion, that it is publicly discoursed among them, that they will rise in arms for defence of religion, and oppose the King and the Popish party. They persuade their disciples that their friends in the South are ready to appear in arms for defence of religion, and oppose the King and the Popish party."—Sir P. Musgrave to Williamson, Aug. 22, 1667. Cal. 409.

[636] Life of James II., i. 441. Dalrymple's Memoirs, i. 70; iii. 1–68. The treaty is printed in Lingard, xi. 364. Rarely has anything in diplomacy been so unprincipled and shameful as Article II. of this document. Charles' pretexts were religious, his object political.

[637] See letters in Phenix, i. 566. Calamy's Life, i. 119.

[638] G. P. R. James' Life of Louis XIV., ii. 171.

[639] Evelyn, ii. 88.

[640] Harris' Charles II., ii. 81.

[641] Lingard, xi. 356. April 10, 1671. Wednesday. "This evening her royal highness' body was privately conveyed from St. James' Palace, where she died, to Westminster, where, till things could be put in order, [she] was deposited in state in the painted chamber; and about nine in the evening she was most solemnly attended to the Abbey by her own, the King's, the Queen's, and the Duke's servants. A vast train of the nobility, gentry, and many members of Parliament, in their blacks, guarded by two companies of foot, and finally interred in the royal vault of Henry VII.'s chapel. The ceremony [was] performed by the Bishop of Rochester, the Dean of Westminster Cathedral, to the extreme grief and disconsolation of all present. The Court, on this occasion, are entered into solemn mourning, in which 'tis thought they may continue for some months."—State Papers.

[642] Wood, Ath. Ox., ii. 614. The article on Woodhead is copious and interesting.

[643] Chalmer's Biographical Dictionary.

[644] Butler's English Catholics, iv. 425.

[645] This account of the working of Roman Catholicism in England is taken from the MSS. Travels of Cosmo, the third Grand Duke of Tuscany, (1669), printed in Appendix to Butler's English Cath., iii. 513.

[646] Five editions of Pascal were published between 1658 and 1688. The Protestant Almanack for 1668 is a disgraceful publication.

[647] State Papers, Dom. 1667, Sept. 6. (Cal.)

[648] State Papers, Dom., 1667. October 28 (Cal.).

[649] The following letter is addressed to Sir Joseph Williamson, Whitehall.—"Worthy Sir,—This day came the proclamation against Papists to Nottingham, being the last assize day. It was received with so much joy that bells and bonfires rung and flamed at that rate as they never did since His Majesty's restoration. The fanatics contended with the conformists who should show most zeal in expressing their joy for His Majesty's great grace. You may believe without swearing that neither this news, nor what the King did in the house last Saturday, was unwelcome to, Sir,

"Your most humble Servant,

"P. Whalley.

"Martij 15, 1672.

"If one of your clerks would take notice on't in the next Gazette, it would gratify the whole corporation."—State Papers, Dom. Chas. II.

[650] State Papers, Dom. Chas. II. Letter from W. Aston, 1676, April 3.

[651] State Papers, June 6, Nov. 10–13.

[652] State Papers, 1674, Jan. 20. Connected with this communication are papers containing drafts of advice for suppressing Popery. The Bishops of Canterbury, Durham, Winchester, Salisbury, Peterborough, Rochester, Chichester, and Chester, reply "that they observe with sorrow the growth of profaneness, Romanism, and Dissent;" "that they do not think any new laws are necessary for the purpose, but only the removal of such obstructions as have hitherto hindered the execution of them." What those obstructions were, the authors of this conclusion do not specify. There is another paper in the same bundle, recommending the Attorney-General to bestir himself in the matter, and that letters should be written to the Justices of the Peace; that there be a new general proclamation; that constables and churchwardens should be enjoined to search for suspected persons; and that the orders against priests, Popish seminaries, and resort of Papists to Court, should be fixed at the Court Gate, St. James's, and Somerset House.

[653] This is Reresby's own account. Ralph follows him, but in the imperfect reports of the debates in the Parl. Hist. (iv. 780), the statement in the House is said to have been made by Mr. Russel.

[654] Lingard, xii. 72.

[655] State Papers, Dom. Charles II., 1676, Oct. 27.

[656] Glanvill's Zealous and Impartial Protestant, p. 46. This and other instances of exaggeration are given in The Happy Future State of England, p. 140. It should be stated that the author of this last work endeavours to make out the Roman Catholics to have been as few as possible. The population of England, and the relative proportion of different classes of religionists, will be noticed in a subsequent chapter.

[657] "The debate or arguments for dissolving this present Parliament," 1675. Written by the Earl of Shaftesbury. Parl. Hist., IV. lxxviii.

[658] Campbell's Lives, iv. 185.

[659] Parl. Hist., iv. 801.

[660] Life of James II., i. 505. Parl. Hist., iv. 814, 824.

[661] State Papers, April, 1677.

[662] Lingard, xii. 96, 97. The Resolutions on which these Bills were founded are contained in the Lords' Journals, 1677, February 21 & 22.

[663] March 20, Parl. Hist., iv. 853–7. The same History (iv. 858) takes notice on the 29th of March of Marvell's boxing Sir Philip Harcourt's ear for stumbling on his foot.

[664] Parl. Hist. iv. 862. Journals, 1677, April 4.

[665] Ibid., 863. Lords' Journals, April 13; May 26.

[666] Lords' Journals, April 12, 13, 14.

[667] The Act now noticed should be considered in connection with what is said in a preceding part of this History, p. 96.

[668] Commons' Journals, April 29.

[669] Parl. Hist., iv. 980.

[670] June 12. Parl. Hist., iv. 990.

[671] Hist. of his Own Time, i. 177.

[672] Hook's Archbishops. Second series, i. 173.

[673] Hammond, in 1654, speaks of Sheldon's being "very good company." Letter in Harl. MSS., 21, printed in Ecclesiastic, April, 1853.

[674] See Pepys' account of a dinner party at Lambeth, Diary, May 14th, 1669. He tells disgraceful stories about Sheldon which were current at the time; and, it should be remembered, that although Sheldon at length rebuked Charles for his intimacy with Lady Castlemaine, it does not appear that he had before broken silence as to the shameful libertinism of the Court.

[675] Wood says (Ath. Ox., iv. 855) that Sheldon was not installed at Canterbury, and never visited it during the time that he was Archbishop; nor did he visit Oxford all the time he was Chancellor.

[676] The expression is Milman's, in reference to another character.

[677] In these sketches, I include all the notable members of the Episcopal body down to the Revolution—but, though I anticipate the period embraced in our subsequent narrative, the seven Bishops are omitted, as they will require particular notice hereafter.

[678] Aubrey's Letters, iii. 574.

[679] Pope's Life of Ward, 57. This book abounds in amusing anecdotes.

[680] There is in the Lambeth Library, in addition to the returns made to Sheldon, an account of the number and proportions of Popish recusants, obstinate Separatists, and Conformists, inhabitants of Wiltshire, and Berkshire, under the immediate jurisdiction of the Bishop of Sarum, by Seth Ward, 1676. See as to Ward, Baxter's Life and Times, iii. 86.

[681] Seth Ward told Aubrey a queer story respecting a theological opponent. "One Mr. Hagger, a gentleman, and good mathematician, was well acquainted with Mr. Th. Hariot, and was wont to say, that he did not like (or valued it not) the old story of the creation of the world. He could not believe the old position, he would say, ex nihilo nihil fit. But, said Mr. Hagger, a nahitú killed him at last; for in the top of his nose came a little red speck (exceeding small), which grew bigger and bigger, and at last killed him. I suppose it was that which the chirurgeons call a noli me tangere." Letters, iii. 368.

[682] Burnet, i. 590.

[683] Morley's Treatises. Sermon before the King, p. 38.

[684] He had unfairly preached against Baxter, and blazed abroad his marriage with all the odium he could cast upon it. Life and Times, ii. 375, 384. I have noticed Baxter's opinion of Morley, and the conduct of the latter, on p. 439 of this volume.

[685] Life and Times, iii. 84. The spirit of Morley is manifested in the following passage, speaking of Kidderminster—"The truth is, that Mr. Baxter was never either parson, vicar, or curate there, or anywhere else in my diocese—for he never came in by the door—that is, by any legal right, or lawful admission into that sheep-fold, but climbed up some other way, namely, by violence and intrusion, and therefore, by Christ's own inference, he was a thief and a robber."—The Bishop of Winchester's Vindication, p. 2. At the time of writing the letter, Morley was Bishop of Worcester, which diocese included Kidderminster.

Salmon, in his Lives of the English Bishops, p. 346, says of Morley, "His strength is attributed to keeping up his College custom of rising at five in the morning, sitting without a fire, and going to his bed cold. He did indeed exceed in severity to himself, eating but once a day, and not going to bed till eleven."

[686] Fuller, in his Worthies, i. 483, retracts some things which he had advanced against Cosin in his Church History, and observes, "It must be confessed, that a sort of fond people surmised, as if he had once been declining to the Popish persuasion. Thus the dim-sighted complain of the darkness of the room, when, alas, the fault is in their own eyes; and the lame of the unevenness of the floor, when, indeed, it lieth in their unsound legs."

[687] Ibid., 484.

[688] Life of Richard Gilpin, prefixed to his Demonologia Sacra, xxxv. Also, I find in the Record Office, a letter from "John Bishop of Durham" to Williamson, sending "the complaint received from Newcastle about the seditious meetings of the Congregation of Saints." The letter is dated November 23rd, 1668. The complaint refers to a public meeting on the 1st of November, in Barber Surgeon's Hall, of 500 of the Congregation of Saints, headed and led by Gilpin, notoriously known to be disaffected to the Government. It is stated, that he caused the 149th Psalm to be sung—and a treasonable construction is put upon the words. Three persons are named in connection with Gilpin—Durant, Leaver, and Pringle.—November 23.

[689] Conformist's Plea, 35. There is a letter in the Record Office (Sanderson to Williamson, 1667, Sept. 19), complaining of the laxity of the Bishop of Durham, in not convicting John Cock, a notorious Nonconformist—agent for Lady Vane, at Raby Castle, who was brought before him.

[690] Basire, 89.

[691] Life, by Plume.

[692] Salmon says "the expense was £20,000, of which the Chapter contributed £1,000. The rest was his own, or procured by him of other pious persons."—Lives, 296.

[693] Life, by Plume. See Coleridge on Hacket's Sermons—Remains, iii. 175.

[694] See notice of Wilkins, in Pope's Life of Seth Ward.

[695] Newcome, in his Diary, says—"November 22, 1672. I received the sad news of the death of the learned, worthy, pious, and peaceable Bishop of Chester, Dr. John Wilkins; he was my worthy friend." John Angier, the Nonconformist minister at Denton, speaks of his removal as a great loss.—Heywood's Life of Angier, 86. Martindale (Autobiography, 196) also refers to the Bishop's moderation, and adds—"But the Archbishop of York, by his visitation, took all power out of his hands for a year, soon after which this honest Bishop Wilkins died." I may be permitted to add that the good Bishop was a wit. In reference to his idea of the possibility of a passage to the moon, the Duchess of Newcastle said to him, "Doctor, where am I to find a place for waiting in the way up to that planet?" "Madam," replied he, "of all other people in the world, I never expected that question from you, who have built so many castles in the air, that you may be every night at one of your own."—Stanley's Memorials of Westminster, 234.

[696] Preached at the Guildhall Chapel, London, 1672, p. 46.

[697] Own Time, i. 187.

[698] Wood, Athen. Ox. iii. 969.

[699] Wood's Athen. Ox., iii. 1085.

[700] Norwich, April 13, 1670. Lambeth Library, Tenison MSS. 674.

[701] Athen. Oxon. iv. 309–317. There is a letter from Croft amongst the State Papers (Dec. 30, 1678), relative to his Library, &c.

[702] Hist. 42.

[703] He lay in state in a room under the Regent House. Over the hearse was spread the coat of the King or Herald-at-arms, of crimson satin, richly embroidered with gold. At the head of the hearse was standing the Bishop's mitre, which was silver-gilt, the cap, or inpart whereof, was crimson satin or silk; the mitre was plain, saving some little flower wrought in the middle on each side thereof, and on the top of each a little cross of about an inch in length and breadth. On one side of the top of the hearse lay along the Bishop's crosier of silver, somewhat in likeness to a shepherd's crook of about an ell long, and in thickness round above two inches and a half.—Ald. Newton's Diary, quoted in Annals of Cambridge, by Cooper, iii. 522.