by Bacon, who now compared Essex to the Duke of Guise, and called his defence a silly defence, and his offence treason, the lord high-steward directed the peers to withdraw, and ordered the lieutenant of the Tower to remove the two prisoners from the bar. law. In half an hour the peers came forth again with an unanimous sentence of guilty against both the earls. When the clerk of the crown asked the mournful question of form, what he could say for himself why judgment of death should not be pronounced against him, Essex answered like a man tired of life, but he begged earnestly for mercy to his friend Southampton. The lordsteward advised him to submit, and implore the queen's mercy by acknowledging and confessing all his offences. Essex begged him not to think him too proud, but he could not ask for mercy in that way, though with all humility he prayed her majesty's forgiveness; he would rather die than live in misery; he had cleared his accounts, had forgiven all the world, and was ready and willing to be out of it. Immediately after his arrival at the Tower, he was visited by the dean of Norwich, who was to endeavour to obtain from him the names of all such as had been engaged with him in any way in the enterprise. The dean met with no success; but it was otherwise when the earl was attended by his own chaplain, Mr. Ashton-"a base, fearful, and mercenary man," who had obtained a great ascendency over him, and who, to all appearance, had now sold himself to the Cecil party at court. The day after Ashton's visit, Essex, it is said, made an ample confession, implicating several indivi appearance humble and religious, but in this op- | house, and this man was confused and pale when position not so. God be thanked we now know cross-questioned by Essex. After another speech you; your religion appears by those Papists who were your chief counsellors, and to whom and others you had promised liberty of conscience hereafter. .. But I challenge you to name the counsellor to whom I spoke these words about the infanta's title. Name him if you dare; if you do not name him, it must be believed to be a fic- When the lords had got together in a private tion." The Earl of Essex, turning to Southamp-place, the two chief-justices and the lord chiefton, said that he was the honourable person that | baron went to them to deliver their opinions in had heard it all. Cecil then conjured Southampton, by their former friendship, to name the counsellor who had said that he (Cecil) had spoken those words. Southampton appealed to the court whether it were consistent with honour that he should betray the secret; "and," added he, "if you say upon your honour it be fit, I will name him." The court said that it was fit and honourable; and Southampton thereupon said, "It was told my Lord of Essex and myself that you should speak such words about the infanta to Mr. Comptroller, Sir William Knollys." A serjeant-at-arms was despatched for Knollys; and, in the interval, Coke pressed the accusations of hypocrisy and irreligion upon Essex-"forasmuch as, having in his house continual preaching, he yet was content to have Sir Christopher Blount, a notorious Papist, in his house, and to promise toleration of religion." Blount, it must be remembered, was Essex's stepfather.' The earl said he knew him to be a Papist, and had often sought his conversion; and that, being in speech together about matter of religion, Blount had told him that he was too passionate against those of his profession: "Whereto," said Essex, "I replied thus-Did you ever know that at such times as I had power in the state, I was willing that any one should be troubled for his conscience? And this, my lords, is the whole ground and substance of my promise for toleration of religion." It was very un-duals, and, among others, the King of Scotland. necessary for him to defend himself against what ought to have tended to his glory! When Sir William Knollys arrived in court, he deposed that he merely heard Cecil say that the title of the infanta was maintained in a printed book."" It was not likely that Knollys should commit himself in a question between a fallen favourite and a minister of state, like Sir Robert Cecil, daily rising in favour and power: on the other hand, the charge against Cecil wears little appearance of probability. None of the witnesses were produced on the trial, with the exception of George, who had liberated the ministers from Essex's He had married Essex's mother on the death of her second husband, the favourite Leicester. 2 A Conference about the next Succession to the Crown of England. This book, which bears the assumed name of Doleman, is supposed to have been written by the celebrated English Jesuit, Father Parsons. His confession filled four sheets of paper; but many doubts are entertained as to its authenticity. We believe that the story of the queen's vacillation and agony, with the romantic incident of the ring, rests upon no good foundation. Her personal regard for Essex had been extinguished for some time; and it is proved, by letters and documents in the State Paper Office, that, as soon as his confession was obtained, his execution was prepared, without serious objection on the part of the queen. One of the strangest things attending the case was the resolution to make this execution a private one, and to declare that the earl himself had been an exceeding earnest suitor to be executed privately in the Tower, whither no friend, not even his wife or mother, had been admitted to see him since his first com 3 Jardine, Criminal Trials. On the 1st of March, she was laid in bed, partly by force, and listened attentively to the prayers and discourses of the Bishop of Chichester, the Bishop of London, but chiefly to Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury. It is scarcely necessary to put the reader on his guard against an herself: to which may be added an inclination | gone to her, I believe she means to die as cheerfor the Earl of Clancarty, a brave, handsome fully as she has lived." Irish nobleman. This makes her cheerful, full of hope and confidence respecting her age; this inclination is, besides, promoted by the whole court with so much art that I cannot sufficiently wonder at it. . . . The flatterers about the court say this Irish earl resembles the Earl of Essex; the queen, on the other hand, with equal dis-over-positive belief in any of the accounts of what simulation, declares that she cannot like him because he too strongly revives her sorrow for that earl; and this contest employs the whole court." A few months afterwards, on the 19th of March, 1603, Beaumont informed his court that Elizabeth was sinking, and that disease, and not, as she alleged, her grief at the recent death of the Countess of Nottingham, had prevented her from showing herself abroad-that she had scarcely any sleep, and ate much less than usual-that she had so great a heat of the mouth and stomach that she was obliged to cool herself every instant, in order that the burning phlegm, with which she was often oppressed, might not stifle her. Some people, he said, were of opinion that her illness had been brought on by her displeasure touching the succession; some, that it had been caused by the Irish affairs, her council having constrained her (against her nature and inclination) to grant a pardon to the Earl of Tyrone; while others affirmed that she was possessed with grief for the death of the Earl of Essex. "It is certain,” adds the ambassador, "that a deep melancholy is visible in her countenance and actions. It is, however, much more probable that the sufferings incident to her age, and the fear of death, are the chief causes of all." In his next despatch he says that the queen, who would take no medieine whatever, was given up by the physicians. She would not take to her bed, for fear, as some supposed, of a prophecy she should die in that bed. "For the last two days," he adds, "she has been sitting on cushions on the floor, neither rising nor lying down, her finger almost always in her mouth, her eyes open and fixed on the ground. Yet, as this morning the queen's band has passed in these moments of mystery and awe, when the people about her were determined to make her say the things that made most for their interest and plans. The narrative more generally received is, that, on the 22d of March, Secretary Cecil, with the lord-admiral and the lord-keeper, approached the dying queen and begged her to name her successor: she started, and then said, "I told you my seat has been the seat of kings; I will have no rascal to succeed me!" The lords, not understanding this dark speech, looked the one on the other; but, at length, Cecil boldly asked her what she meant by those words-"no rascal?" She replied that a king should succeed her, and who could that be but her cousin of Scotland? They then asked her whether that was her absolute resolution? whereupon she begged them to trouble her no more. Notwithstanding, some hours after, when the Archbishop of Canterbury and other divines had been with her, and had left her in a manner speechless, the three lords repaired to her again, and Cecil besought her, if she would have the King of Scots to succeed her, she would show a sign unto them. Whereat, suddenly heaving herself up in her bed, she held both her hands joined together over her head in manner of a crown. Then she sank down, fell into a dose, and, at three o'clock on the morning of the 24th of March, which Bacon accounted as a fine morning before sun-rising," meaning thereby the rising of James, she died in a stupor, without any apparent pain of mind or body, at her palace of Richmond. She was in the seventieth year of her age, and the forty-fifth year of her reign.' 1 Camden; Somers; Birch; D'Israeli; Raumer; Lodge. be there before the next parliament." The miristers and courtiers could not withstand the inpetuous attacks which ensued. Raleigh, who dealt largely in tin, and had his fingers in other profitable monopolies, offered to give them all up: Cecil and Bacon talked loudly of the prero one, proposed by an eminent historian, would trace the attempt directly to the contrivance of Elizabeth: in support of which view it is alleged that, besides the Earl of Gowrie's known attachment to the English interest, he had, during his residence in Paris, contracted an intimate friendship with Sir Henry Neville, the queen's ambas-gative, and endeavoured to persuade the house sador there, and was recommended by him to his court as a person of whom great use might be made; that he had been received by Elizabeth, as he returned home through England, with distinguished marks of respect and favour; that Elizabeth's participation in the affair was matter of general suspicion at the time; that for some months before an English ship was observed hovering in the mouth of the Firth of Forth; that after the failure of the conspiracy the earl's two younger brothers fled into England, and were protected by Elizabeth; and, finally, that James, though he prudently concealed what he felt, is well known to have at this time taken great umbrage at the behaviour of the English queen. The object of the Govrie conspiracy, it is assumed on this supposition, was not to murder but only to coerce James, and control the government, as had been the object of the authors of the Raid of Ruthven, sixteen years before—an enterprise which was in like manner instigated and supported by Elizabeth.' that it would be fitter to proceed by petition than by bill; but it was properly answered that nothing had been gained by petitioning in the last parliament. After four days of such debate as the house had not heard before, Elizabeth sent down a message that she would revoke all grants that should be found injurious by fair trial at law; and Cecil, seeing that the commons were not satisfied with the ambiguous general y of this expression, gave an assurance that the existing patents should all be repealed and no more be granted. The commons hailed their victory with exceeding great joy, though in effect her majesty did not revoke all the monopolies. Elizabeth now employed an oblique irony against some of the movers in the debate, but the imperious tone, the harsh schooling, of former years, were gone. Her resolute will was now struggling in vain against the infirmities of her body, and she saw that there was a growing strength and spirit among the representatives of the people. In the meantime the Lord Mountjoy, the su‹In the month of October, 1601, Elizabeth met cessor to Essex in the command of Ireland, had her parliament for the last time, sick and failing, to maintain a tremendous struggle, for Don Juan but dressed more gaily and gorgeously than ever. D'Aguilar landed at Kinsale with 4000 Spanish She was in great straits for money in order to troops, fortified himself skilfully in that position, carry on the war in Ireland. The houses voted and gave fresh life to the Catholic insurgents. her much more than had ever been voted at a But Mountjoy acted with vigour and decision; time, viz.—four subsidies, and eight tenths and he collected all the forces he possibly could, and fifteenths; but the commons were as free of their shut up the Spaniards within their lines at Kincomplaints as they were of their money, and they sale. On Christmas Eve (1601) the Earl of Tycalled loudly and boldly for a redress of grievan- rone advanced to the assistance of his friends ces. The most notorious of the abuses which with 6000 native Irish and 400 foreigners. His disgraced the civil government of Elizabeth were project was to attack the English besiegers by an endless string of monopolies, which had been surprise before daylight, but Mountjoy, who was for the most part bestowed by the queen on her awake and ready, repulsed him from all points favourites. All kind of wine, oil, salt, starch, of his camp, and finally defeated him with great tin, steel, coals, and numerous other commodi- loss. Thereupon D'Aguilar capitulated, and was ties, were monopolized by men who had the ex-permitted to return to Spain, with arms, baggage, clusive right of vending them, and fixing their own prices. The commons' complaints were not new; they had pressed them many years before, but they had been then silenced by authority, and told that no one must speak against licenses and monopolies lest the queen and council should be angry thereat. Of course, in the interval, Mountjoy's great victory at Kinsale somewhat they had gone on increasing. When the list of revived the spirits of Elizabeth, who found furthem was now read over in the house, a member ther consolation in a tall Irish favourite. "Her asked whether bread was not among the num- eye," writes Beaumont, the French ambassador, ber? The house seemed amazed. "Nay," said “is still lively; she has good spirits, and is fond he, "if no remedy is found for these, bread will of life, for which reason she takes great care of and ammunition. His departure and the destructive ravages of famine brought the Irish to extremities, and Tyrone, after fleeing from place to place, capitulated, and, upon promise of life and lands, surrendered to Mountjoy at the end of 1602.2 herself: to which may be added an inclination | gone to her, I believe she means to die as cheerfor the Earl of Clancarty, a brave, handsome fully as she has lived.” Irish nobleman. This makes her cheerful, full of hope and confidence respecting her age; this inclination is, besides, promoted by the whole court with so much art that I cannot sufficiently wonder at it. . . . The flatterers about the court say this Irish earl resembles the Earl of Essex; the queen, on the other hand, with equal dis-over-positive belief in any of the accounts of what simulation, declares that she cannot like him because he too strongly revives her sorrow for that earl; and this contest employs the whole court." A few months afterwards, on the 19th of March, 1603, Beaumont informed his court that Elizabeth was sinking, and that disease, and not, as she alleged, her grief at the recent death of the Countess of Nottingham, had prevented her from showing herself abroad-that she had scarcely any sleep, and ate much less than usual-that she had so great a heat of the mouth and stomach that she was obliged to cool herself every instant, in order that the burning phlegm, with which she was often oppressed, might not stifle her. Some people, he said, were of opinion that her illness had been brought on by her displeasure touching the succession; some, that it had been caused by the Irish affairs, her council having constrained her (against her nature and inclination) to grant a pardon to the Earl of Tyrone; while others affirmed that she was possessed with grief for the death of the Earl of Essex. "It is certain," adds the ambassador, "that a deep melancholy is visible in her countenance and actions. It is, however, much more probable that the sufferings incident to her age, and the fear of death, are the chief causes of all." In his next despatch he that the queen, who would take no medicine whatever, was given up by the physicians. She would not take to her bed, for fear, as some supposed, of a prophecy she should die in that bed. "For the last two days," he adds, "she has been sitting on cushions on the floor, neither rising nor lying down, her finger almost always in her month, her eyes open and fixed on the ground. Yet, as this morning the queen's band has On the 1st of March, she was laid in bed, partly by force, and listened attentively to the prayers and discourses of the Bishop of Chichester, the Bishop of London, but chiefly to Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury. It is scarcely necessary to put the reader on his guard against an says passed in these moments of mystery and awe, Camden; Somers; Birch; D'Israeli; Raumer; Lodge. CHAPTER XX.-HISTORY OF RELIGION A.D. 1485-1603. Predominance of Popery during the earlier part of this period-Ineffectual attempts of Henry VII. to restrict it -Martyrdoms during his reign-Doctrines held by those who suffered martyrdom-Internal history of the church during the reign of Henry VII.-Theological controversy at the accession of Henry VIII.-Difficulty of punishing ecclesiastical offenders-Attempt to limit benefit of clergy-Trial of Richard Hunne for heresy -His death in prison-Trial and punishment of his dead body-Consequences to the church from this event -Wolsey's ascendency and influence-Share of Henry VIII. in the English Reformation-Career of Luther in Germany-Controversy between Henry VIII. and Luther-Change in Henry's proceedings from his love of Anne Boleyn-Protestantism set up in England-Suppression of the monastic institutions-Charges brought against them-Waste of the confiscated church property-The Bible translated into EnglishPrevious attempts to make the Scriptures accessible to the laity-The new translation made patent to the people-Its effects-Alterations made in the Directory for Public Worship-Publication and character of 'King Henry's Primer"-Waverings of Henry VIII. in the progress of the Reformation-Doctrinal articles ratified in the convocation of 1536-Their compromising character-Destruction of images, relics, &c.-Reaction in the progress of the Reformation-Henry VIII. assumes to himself the authority of pope-His enactments in this new character-The six articles of the Bloody Statute"-They are established as the rule of faith in England-They terminate the reformation of Henry VIII.-Injunctions issued by Bishop Bonner to his clergy-Their denunciation of miracle plays and interludes-Act of parliament to suppress these exhibitions-Parliamentary act to regulate the reading of the Scriptures-Publication of the "Bishops' Book"-Its subsequent editions and alterations-The "Bloody Statute" still continued-Martyrdoms in consequence of its violation-State of the English church at the close of the reign of Henry VIII.- Numeral superiority of the Papists over the Protestants at the accession of Edward VI.-Circumstances favourable to the Reformation-Its rapid rise-Homilies introduced by Cranmer into the churches-Cautious proceedings of Cranmer and the Reformers-Removal of images and religious emblems from the churches-The Book of Common Prayer introduced-Settlement of doctrine finally effected-Reform of the canon law-The reign of Mary advances the Reformation in England-Her proceedings as the opponent of the Reformation-Martyrdoms during her reign-English Protestants driven into exile-Accession of Elizabeth-Her leanings towards Popery-Her first steps to restrain the ardour of her Protestant subjects-Re-establishment of Protestantism-The oath of supremacy rejected by the bishops-General visitation of the National clergyIts injunctions-Completion of the Protestant re-establishment in England, in 1562-Coverdale's new translation of the Bible-Middle position of the English church complained of-Legislative church enactments during the reign of Elizabeth-Abolition of the Papal supremacy-Act for uniformity in religious ordinances and public worship-Penalties for their infringement-Their execution against Papists-Rise of Puritanism in England-Its increase by the return of English exiles from abroad-Doctrine of the English on the right of private interpretation of Scripture-Sentiments of the earlier Puritans on the subject-Their ideas of toleration-Persecution commenced against the Puritans-They withdraw from the Established church-Strength of Puritanism in the English colleges-Continued war between Puritanism and the Established church-Statutes against the Puritans-Ori, in of the Brownists or Independents-Archbishop Whitgift's severe measures against the Puritans-Revival of the statute for the burning of heretics-It is brought into act against the Anabaptists. The Reformation in Scotland-Previous exemption of the country from the argressions of the Popedom-Undue power obtained in consequence by the Scottish priesthood-Corruptions of the Scottish clergy-Their ignorance-Early facilities for a Reformation in Scotland-Patrick Hamilton, the first Scottish Reformer-His martyrdom-Martyrdom of George Wishart-Account of John Knox-He commences his public career at St. Andrews-His banishment-His return to Scotland-The question of religious reform brought before the Scottish parliament -The Confession of Faith established -The First Book of Discipline subscribed by the privy council-Summary of its principles-Office-bearers of the church-Different orders of church courts-Rules of church discipline-Their urgent necessity-Peculiarities of the Scottish Reformation-Knox's plans of reform opposed by the Scottish nobles--Pernicious effects of their opposition-The order of bishops continued in Scotland-Selfish purposes of the court in continuing them-James VI. attempts to rule the church through the bishops-His arbitrary proceedings to coerce the church. n OT only the history of the changes that took place during this period in the constitution of the National church, but also, to some extent, of the new opinions, the controversies, and the persecutions out of which they arose, or by which they were accompanied, has necessarily been given in the preceding chapters. The task that remains to us here is little more than to fill up the outline already drawn. Throughout the reign of Henry VII., however, and the first half of that of his son and successor that is to say, for rather more than a third of the present period-the ancient Roman faith was |