evidence of their approbation, and the best comment on their ELIZAwritings.

As to the remonstrance, it is supposed the privy-council saw through the weakness of it. To prevent an ill impression, the bishop wrote to secretary Cecil, acquainted him with the case, and that some of the Bristol preachers had misbehaved themselves. This Cheney, in the beginning of queen Mary's reign, was one of the Protestant divines who argued in the convocation.

BETH.

assists the

Hugonots.

The next year the civil war between the Hugonots and the French king was revived. The queen, by secretary Cecil's The queen advice, treated with the prince of Conde's agent, and agreed to French assist these Protestants: though, by the way, they overlooked Cambden. her in the late pacification between them and their prince. The Eliz. queen suffered in her honour upon this score. The abetting subjects against their sovereign was not every where understood. For instance, seignior Bertano, an Italian gentleman, wrote an expostulatory letter to Cecil upon this head. The secretary, in his answer, acquaints the gentleman, that the queen had done nothing indefensible, and that her conduct might easily be justified to indifferent judges: but he neither argued the point, nor assigned the reasons for satisfaction.

This summer, one Tilney, a gentleman, moved for a marriage dispensation. The case was at last brought into the Arches, where the archbishop, the lord keeper, and the secretary Cecil, were present. The question was double, whether the case would admit of a dispensation, and if so, who had a right to give it. The secretary affirmed the queen might do it, "for she," says he, "may do as much as the pope." The archbishop looked upon this as a crude assertion, and discovered his dislike but afterwards, to prevent misconstruction, he explained himself on this head in a letter to the secretary. He told this minister, "he would by no means dispute the queen's absolute power, or prerogative royal; nor how far her highness might claim a papal jurisdiction, or act upon precedents in the court of Rome: but yet, if a subject should receive a dispensation from the crown, not warranted by the laws made by her majesty, and the three estates, in this case he questions whether the subject might not some time or other be called to account, and lose the benefit of such a grant; especially since the extent of dispensations is precisely settled by act of parliament it is true, during the prince's life such grants might

A.D. 1569.

PARKER, be covered from dispute; but then another reign might call for Abp. Cant, retrospection." And here he declares himself disgusted with

some lawyers, who make the injunctions of a prince during his own life, not to have equal force with the canon law upon the same question. He instances the queen's injunctions upon all ministers, relating to their marriage: and puts the question whether they are capable of any ecclesiastical preferment, in case they happen to omit the circumstances prescribed. This order already related the archbishop approves, provided the printer had not made a gross mistake in publishing it. For the A gross mis- injunctions in the original manuscript run thus: "That the take in the parties marriable must be so allowed by two justices of the printed in peace, or by the ordinary. Whereas it is printed, “and by the lating to the ordinary." Now this latter reading makes the order much more remarkable, and severe upon the clergy. However, the lawyers were of opinion an overlooking or contempt of this part of the injunctions drew no incapacity along with it, nor Strype's Life was any disabling omission. of Archbp. Parker, p. 277.

queen's

junctions re

marriage of the clergy.

To

About this time the duke of Alva sent an agent to the English court his pretence was to adjust some differences relating to commerce: but the bottom design was to countenance an intended insurrection, to give advice of the progress, and head the reinforcement which was to be sent from Flanders. The earls of touch upon this matter, the earls of Northumberland and berland and Westmorland were suspected for malcontents, and commanded Westmor- to court to purge themselves: but, instead of obeying the rebellion in queen's summons, they discovered their practice, rung the bells

Northum

land raise a

the North.

520.

backwards to raise the country, and formed an army. To impose upon the people, and bring them into a revolt, they threw out several specious pretences. Some of them were made to believe these forces were levied to guard the queen. Others were told all the English quality had engaged to restore the Roman Catholic religion: and to others they pleaded a necessity of appearing in arms to rescue the ancient nobility from the insults of upstarts, and to secure the country from being betrayed to foreign interest. One Nicholas Morton was a great incendiary in this commotion. He is said to have been sent from the pope for this purpose, and had instructions to declare the queen an heretic, and that she had forfeited her Cambden, dominions for her misbelief.

Eliz.

The rebels now increased to a considerable number: and,

BETH.

ranged in military order, published a declaration, "that they ELIZAhad taken the field only to restore the religion of their ancestors, to remove evil counsellors, to enlarge the duke of Norfolk lately imprisoned, and recommend other discountenanced men of quality to the queen's favour. As for her majesty, they were, and resolved to be always, her most obedient subjects, and should never attempt anything against her."

Besides this manifesto, they sent circular-letters to the Roman Catholics, to exert themselves, and join them. But these men, as Cambden reports, were so far from closing with the invitation, that most of them sent up their letters, with those that brought them, to the queen, and, from all quarters of the kingdom, offered the crown their assistance against the rebels of their religion.

Durham.

However, the insurrection went on, and the rebels made Their outtheir first march to Durham. And here, going into the m churches, they tore the English Bible and the Common Prayer. They officiated in the service of the mass, had the five wounds of Christ represented in some of their colours, and a chalice in others. One Richard Norton, an ancient gentleman, carried the standard with a cross in it. And thus they came to Clifford-moor, not far from Wetherby. Here they mustered their army, and found themselves no more than six hundred horse, and four thousand foot. When they under

miscurries.

stood the queen of Scots, whose rescue they designed, was conveyed from Tutberry to Coventry, and that the queen's forces were almost ready to inclose them, they countermarched to Raby, the earl of Westmorland's seat. From hence they set down before Bernard-castle, and had it surrendered. But now the earl of Sussex, moving towards them with seven thousand effective men, they retreated, first to Auckland, then to Hexham, and afterwards to Naworth-castle. And here, receiving intelligence that the earl of Warwick and the lord The rebellion admiral Clinton were coming down upon them from the south, with a body of twelve thousand, the two earls, with a few of their friends, slipped away into Scotland. When those who headed the revolt were missing, the rest quickly dispersed. There were three-score and six constables and others executed at Durham, amongst which, Plumptree, a priest, and Struther, an alderman, were the most remarkable. Simon Digby, John Fulthorpe, Thomas Bishop, and Robert Pennyman, suffered at York; and Christopher and Thomas Norton, at London. The

PARKER, earl of Westmorland made his escape into Flanders, where he Abp. Cant, commanded a regiment under the king of Spain; but the earl

of Northumberland was afterwards discovered, put into the hands Cambden, of the English by the earl of Murray, and beheaded at York.

Eliz.

De Schis

mate Anglicano, lib. 3, p. 417.

Sanders makes a martyr of the earl of Northumberland, and reports that his life was promised him on condition of changing his religion. This historian, whose principles are desperate, and his zeal almost mounted to distraction, lays the miscarriage upon the defect of conduct, and the immaturity of the project. "It was because," says he, "the pope had not publicly excommunicated the queen, and absolved her subjects from their allegiance;" but Cambden, as hath been observed, though of a different religion, reports the Papists to better advantage, and gives a more honourable account of this matter. "Upon this disappointment," continues Sanders, "the Catholics began to be apprehensive that time and persecution might wear off the remainder of their party. To prevent this misfortune, they projected the founding the transmarine seminaries; that by such a reserve, they might be furnished with English missionaries to perpetuate and increase their communion. This scheme was executed, and the college of Douay founded this founded in year, at the charge of Philip II., king of Spain. Dr. William Allen, an Englishman, was made head of it. In the year 1579, a college at Rome was founded for the same purpose by Gregory XIII., who settled four thousand crowns per annum to subsist the society. The famous Robert Persons, an English Jesuit, was rector of this college. King Philip founded another of these nurseries at Valladolid, in the year 1589; and one at Seville, in 1593. The same prince founded St. Omers, in Artois, in the year 1596. Besides these, in the next century, Madrid, Louvain, Liege, and Ghent, afforded each of them a foundation for the same business.

English seminaries

Flanders,

and elscwhere.

The two colleges of Douay and Rome received such encouragement, and flourished to that degree, that, when Sanders wrote, above three hundred priests had been sent off from thence into England. And here he breaks out into admiration of the zeal and resolution of these missionaries : that, in Catholic countries, the priesthood was often courted for interest and honour; but those who were sent over hither had no such mercenary regards to tempt them. On the contrary, they had nothing but poverty, reproach, and the utmost Id. p. 420. hardship to expect. But no dissuasives of their parents, no

loss in their fortunes, no prospect of danger and death, could ELIZAshake their constancy, or discourage them from the enterprise.

To engage the members of these societies more firmly, and harden them for the business to which they were bred, they obliged them to take the following oath at their admission, provided they were grown up to man's estate:-

"I, A. B., one bred in this English college, considering how great benefits God hath bestowed upon me, but then, especially, when he brought me out of mine own country, so much infected with heresy, and made me a member of the Catholic Church,―as, also, desiring with a thankful heart to improve so great a mercy of God,—have resolved to offer myself wholly up to divine service, as much as I may, to fulfil the end for which this our college was founded; I promise, therefore, and swear, in the presence of Almighty God, that I am prepared from mine heart, with the assistance of divine grace, in due time to receive holy orders, and to return into England, to convert the souls of my countrymen and kindred, when, and as often as, it shall seem good to the superior of this college," &c.

BETH.

The oath taken by the members of the English seminaries.

Continuation of

Anglicano.

To give farther encouragement, pope Pius V. sent his brief Sanders's De to the students of these colleges, to execute the scheme, and Schismate undertake the mission for England: and, that they might act Fuller's without clashing, and with the better harmony, he put them Hist. book 9, all under the direction of Dr. Allen, afterwards cardinal.

Church

p. 92.

And now the court of Rome, having waited a long time for 521. queen Elizabeth's recollection, and despairing of her recovery, resolved to proceed to extremities, and declare her excommunicated. I shall translate the bull as it stands in Sanders's book, "De Schismate Anglicano '."

P. 423.

communi

"A declaratory sentence of our holy lord pope Pius V., The pope's bull for exagainst Elizabeth, pretended queen of England, and all heretics adhering to her. By virtue of which sentence all her subjects cuting the are absolved from their oath of allegiance, and all other en- absolving the subjects from gagements whatsoever: and those who for the future shall their alle obey her, are pronounced excommunicated.

66

Pius, bishop, servant to the servants of God, for a memorial of the matter.

"He that reigns above, to whom all power in heaven and in earth is given, has consigned his one holy Catholic Church,

1 This book, "De Origine et Progressu Schismatis Anglicani," conferred on its author the disagreeable soubriquet, “lying Sanders." It has been exposed by Bayle, Burnet, &c.

queen and

giance.