was too advanced for general acceptance, and the violence of the Marprelate Tracts gave offence even to the Puritans. Englishmen might differ as to what sort of church the national church should be, but almost all were as yet agreed that there ought to be one national church and not a number of disconnected sects. In 1593 an act of Parliament was passed imposing punishment on those who attended conventicles or private religious assemblies, and in the course of the year three of the leading separatists-Barrow, Greenwood, and Penry-were hanged, on charges of sedition. 16. Whitgift and Hooker.-The Church of England would certainly not have sustained itself against the Puritans unless it had found a champion of a higher order than Whitgift. Whitgift maintained its organisation, but he did no more. Cranmer, at the beginning of the Reformation, had declared the Bible as interpreted by the writers of the first six centuries to be the test of doctrine, but this assertion had been met during the greater part of Elizabeth's reign, on the one hand by the Catholics, who asserted that the Church of the first six centuries differed much from the Church of England of their day, and on the other hand by the Puritans, who asserted that the testimony of the first six centuries was irrelevant, and that the Bible alone was to be consulted. Whitgift had called both parties to obedience, on the ground that they ought to submit to the queen in indifferent matters. Hooker in the opening of his Ecclesiastical Polity called the Puritans to peace. "This unhappy controversy," he declared, "about the received ceremonies and discipline of the Church of England, which hath so long time withdrawn so many of her ministers from their principal work and employed their studies in contentious oppositions, hath, by the unnatural growth and dangerous fruits thereof, made known to the world that it never received blessing from the Father of peace." Hooker's teaching was distinguished by the importance which he assigned to 'law,' as against the blind acceptance of Papal decisions on the one side and against the Puritan reverence for the letter of the scriptures on the other. The Puritans were wrong, as he taught, not because they disobeyed the queen, but because they did not recognise that God revealed Himself in the natural laws of the world as well as in the letter or Scripture. "Of law," he wrote, " there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world all things in heaven and earth do her homage-the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power: both angels and men and creatures of what condition 1588-1603 ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE 473 soever though each in different sort and manner, yet all with universal consent--admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy." It was therefore unnecessary, according to Hooker's teaching, to defend certain usages on the ground of their sanction by tradition or by Papal authority, as it was unreasonable to attack them on the ground that they were not mentioned in Scripture. It was sufficient that they were fitting expressions of the feelings of reverence which had been implanted by God in human nature itself. Coaches in the reign of Elizabeth: from Archæologia 17. Spenser, Shakspere, and Bacon.-With the stately periods of Hooker English prose entered on a new stage. For the first time it sought to charm and to invigorate, as well as to inform the world. In Spenser and Shakspere are to be discerned the same influences as those which made Hooker great. They, too, are filled with reverence for the reign of law. Spenser, in his Faerie Queen, set forth the greatness of man in following the laws which II. I I rule the moral world--the laws of purity and temperance and justice; whilst Shakspere, in the plays which he now began to pour forth, taught them to recognise the penalties which follow hard on him who disregards not only the moral but also the physical laws of the world in which he lives, and to appraise the worth of William Shakspere: from the bust on his tomb at Stratford-on-Avon. man by what he is and not by the dogmas which he accepts. That nothing might be wanting to point out the ways in which future generations were to walk, young Francis Bacon began to dream of a larger science than had hitherto been possible-a science based on a reverent inquiry into the laws of nature. 1595-1599 O'NEILL'S RISING act.5.99. 475 18. Condition of the Catholics. 1588-1603.-Bacon cared for many matters, and one of his earliest recommendations to Elizabeth had been to make a distinction between the Catholics who would take an oath to defend her against all enemies and those who would not. The patriotism with which many Catholics had taken her side when the Armada appeared ought to have procured the acceptance of this proposal. It is seldom, however, that either men or nations change their ways till long after the time when they ought to change them. Spain and the Pope still threatened, and all Catholics were still treated as allies of Spain and the Pope, and the laws against them were made even more severe during the remainder of the reign. 19. Irish Difficulties. 1583-1594.—The dread of a renewal of a Spanish invasion was productive of even greater mischief in Ireland than in England. After the suppression of the Desmond insurrection, an attempt was made to colonise the desolate lands of Munster (see p. 453) with English. The attempt failed, chiefly because--though courtiers willingly accepted large grants of lands— English farmers refused to go to Ireland in sufficient numbers to till the soil. On the other hand, Irishmen enough reappeared to claim their old lands, to rob, and sometimes murder, the few settlers who came from England. The settlers retaliated by acts of violence. All over Ireland the soldiers, left without pay, spoiled and maltreated the unfortunate inhabitants. The Irish, exasperated by their cruelty, longed for someone to take up their cause, and in 1594 a rising in Ulster was headed by Hugh O'Neill, known in England as the Earl of Tyrone. How bitter the Irish feeling was against England is shown by the fact that the other Ulster chiefs, who usually quarrelled with one another, now placed themselves under O'Neill. 20. O'Neill and the Earl of Essex. 1595-1600. In 1595 O'Neill applied to the king of Spain for help; but Spain was weaker now than in former years, and though Philip promised help, he died in 1598 without fulfilling his engagement, being succeeded by his son, Philip III. In the same year O'Neill utterly defeated an English army under Bagenal on the Blackwater. All Celtic Ireland rose in his support, and in 1599 Elizabeth sent her favourite, Essex, to conquer Ireland in good earnest, lest it should fall into the hands of the king of Spain. Essex, through mismanagement, failed entirely, and after a great part of his army had melted away he came back to England without leave. On his arrival, knowing Elizabeth's fondness for him, he hoped to surprise her into forgive ness of his disobedience, and rushed into Elizabeth's presence in his muddy and travel-stained clothes. 1599-1601.-The 21. Essex's Imprisonment and Execution. queen, who was not accustomed to allow even her favourites to run away from their posts without permission, ordered him into confinement. In 1600, indeed, she restored him to liberty, but forbade him to come to court. Essex could not brook the dis Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex, K.G., 1567-1601: from a painting grace, especially as the queen made him suffer in his pocket for his misconduct. As she had little money to give away, Elizabeth was in the habit of rewarding her courtiers by grants of monopolythat is to say, of the sole right of selling certain articles, thus enabling them to make a profit by asking a higher price than they could have got if they had been subjected to competition To Essex she had given a monopoly of sweet wines for a term of |