On April 14, the Committee met: the bishops listened to the speeches of the delegates of the Commons, and Bancroft said, on behalf of his colleagues, that the matter was one of great importance, that time was needed to deliberate upon it, and that he would report to the Upper House, which would in due time send a suitable reply. Three days later, on April 17, while the Puritan ministers in and about London fasted and prayed for a favourable outcome, the committees met again at the Painted Chamber, and listened to the "four points very curiously and learnedly handled by four apostles of the Lower House." 1 The Archbishop's reply was reported on April 29 by Sir Francis Bacon to a very thin house. Bancroft narrated the proceedings against the ministers, told of their "factious" behaviour, descanted on the eleven books which they had published and the numerous petitions of various types which had been presented, and concluded that they had been by no means blameless. The bishops had required from them nothing new or unusual, for subscription was insisted upon in every reformed church in Europe,2 and nowhere so stringently as at Geneva. Nor was the subscription in itself objectionable: it was a sort of negative protestation, which did not imply that the subscriber professed his individual assent or agreement to the ThirtyNine Articles and Book of Common Prayer. And, if it did, it was a public form taken for the good of the Church as a whole, which a man ought to take and still believe individually whatever he chose. At the worst, there was little superstition in the ceremonies to which they subscribed: kneeling was simply a manifestation of reverence to Christ, the sign of the cross in baptism was not of the essence of the Sacrament, and the surplice was only a "coat with four elbows.' He saw, therefore, no reason for continuing connivance at such nonconformity but thought the law might very well be enforced. The Bishop of Winchester spoke for the High Commission and the Bishop of Bath and Wells defended the practice of citations as observed in the ecclesiastical courts, while the Bishop of St. David's justified excommunication. In the four bishops' speeches, declared Bacon, were "strength, gravity, quickness and sincerity." 1 S. P. Dom. Jac. I, XX, no. 36. Carleton to Chamberlain. in 2 Moriz Ritter, Deutsche Geschichte Zeitalter der Gegenreformation und des Dreissigjährigen Krieges, A fortnight later, on May 1, the Commons replied. Henry Yelverton, the spokesman of the committee, was a lawyer and member for Northampton, a borough whose Presbyterian practices had been notorious for thirty years. He said that he hoped "the scattering suspicion layed upon a few" would not "be fastened upon all"; he protested that the Commons desired neither Presbytery nor parity; excluded from the benefit of the proposed petition all ministers led "by heate of humour," and, waiving the benefit of law, craved mercy for them on the ground that "many things lawful were not expedient." He interceded, he said, for the pious and peaceful ministers whom he and his colleagues admitted were not "the only and principall men, but acknowledged that the Church is furnished with many other verie lerned and sufficient men." The admirable candor and moderation of this request took Bancroft by surprise. He saw, among the members of the committee before him, many a gentleman whom he knew had supported the old Classis movement and who had either written or spoken or petitioned more than once in favour of the Book of Discipline. The speaker, Yelverton, was at that moment the representative of a borough whose Mayor and Corporation had scarcely a year previous supported a radical Disciplinarian. He said, at last, that he could not understand it, and could hardly believe his ears. They disclaimed parity and Presbytery, and yet were defending men who, to his own certain knowledge, aimed at nothing else. They disowned all who displayed "heate or humour" and yet, in many cases, the men deprived had given ample evidence of both. If those who declared the present government of the Church anti-christian were not schismatics, he did not understand the use of the word. In acknowledging that the deprived and suspended ministers were not the only good men in the Church, they were only just, for they must in sooth, know very many better. "Comparisons becom your Lordship, but not us," returned Yelverton. "We love there giftes but not there faultes." As to the law, you must be conscious, went on the Archbishop, that the whole course of the law and the opinions of all the judges are flatly contrary to your contention. "We desired those men might be protected by mercy, not by law," 1 A long Puritan account of the conference is in Lambeth MSS. 445 f. 424 ff. from which, with the aid of the account in the Commons' Journals of Yelverton's Report to the House (I, 304), the account in the text has been made up. It was necessary to abridge it. replied Yelverton, who had not raised the point of law because it rested with the bishops. He then expounded at length the point on which Burgess and others had already fought stoutly, that the ministers could only be forced to subscribe by the statute of 13 Elizabeth c. 12, which required it only on induction, and compelled no one already in office to subscribe. If the ministers had been inducted since 1571 without subscribing, that was the Bishop's fault, he declared, and the difficulty could not now be legally remedied by exacting subscription universally. Moreover, the law ordered men to subscribe only to such articles of the Thirty-Nine as concerned faith and the sacraments, and nothing was said about subscription to the Book of Common Prayer at all. Nine men in Oxfordshire and one in Warwickshire had been illegally deprived "for not subscribing to the Thirty-sixth Canon, because that Canon giveth no such subscription or punishment. We said generally for all, that all there (i. e. the bishops') procedings since the last Session of Parliament are not warranted by the Law," for the bishops issued their processes under their own seals instead of under the King's. An Act of Edward VI (1 Edward VI. c. 2) had directed the bishops to use the King's seal, and to issue process in his name, not in their own; and the Act, though repealed by 1 Mary c. 2, had been revived when the Act of Mary, in its turn, was repealed by 1 Jac. I. c. 25. All the episcopal acts since 1604 were, therefore, void; all the men deprived were ipso facto reinstated in their places, and the bishops themselves were at the King's mercy for their illegal procedure. In conclusion, he begged the Lords to join with the Commons in this petition to the King. Bancroft replied that the condition of affairs made mercy inexpedient; he saw no indication of reform on the part of those to whom clemency had already been shown; and indeed found them bolder than before, still writing books, still preaching against the Establishment. The Commons had petitioned in their favour "when the clowdes began to gather together," said Yelverton, "but since (then) the storme had fallen and thrust out three hundred," and in these dangerous times, with the papists increasing, they felt the need of those quiet and unassuming pastors, who agreed with the Church in doctrine though not in ceremony, while the papists, who were tolerated, agreed in ceremony but not in doctrine. Not three hundred peaceable men were ejected, retorted Bancroft, but sixty factious and unreasonable ministers, against whom were opposed nine thousand conformable clergy. Their disagreement in ceremony was vital, for, where there were no ceremonies and no established form of worship, the Church as an institution could not exist. The fact that thousands conformed was of no consequence, said Yelverton, especially such thousands as had been gathered into the Church, the covetous, the nonresident, those unable to preach or expound, "Dum Images" without "strength to lay the Axe to the roote of the Tree." Pity the starving wives and children of these poor and pious men who are thrust out into the cold; pity the man himself whose fault was "of infirmitie and for feare of sinn;" beware lest in grubbing out the tares, you do not at the same time destroy the corn. If their Lordships would but join in this petition to the King, they would bind the whole laity of England to them in gratitude. Bancroft replied that he marvelled to find them supporting so strongly the very men who declared them reprobates and covetous seekers of the spoils of the Church. He referred to the breach still unhealed between the gentry and ministers over the disposition of the ecclesiastical property when the Church should finally become Presbyterian. As to the points of law, the statute of Elizabeth did not intend to separate faith and the sacraments from ceremony. The sacraments were ceremonies and ceremonies were religion; the Act intended that men should assent to all thirty-nine of the Articles and never meant that it should be expounded by every Tom and Jack, as he pleased. Nevertheless, he admitted (according to the Puritan account) that some of the ministers had not been deprived according to the forms of strict law, and that subscription ought to be required only from men who applied for induction to benefices and could not be legally required of the whole existing clergy. But he did insist that the bishop's proceedings were legal: the Act of Edward VI regarding the use of the King's seal by the bishops was in the affirmative and said only, it shall be thus, and did not declare, it shall be thus and not otherwise. In any case, the statute of James only repealed the Act of Mary, and did not expressly revive the Act of Edward VI. If his acts had been illegal, he was willing to trust the King's clemency. Then, turning to Yelverton's defense of the ministers, he remarked that where they declared their pastors kept the people warm, he thought they kept them too warm and taught them indiscreet behaviour. "Our good opinions of them made them the worse and yf we will lett our petition fall this session they will all subscribe." He disliked the reflections cast upon the character of the conforming clergy: there were many things desirable in a minister besides the ability to preach. Religion was something more than a matter of the intellect. "There is no religion where there are no ceremonies, the hands, the knees must be affected. besides the harte." He urged them to support only the conformable clergy in the future, and said again that there was no hope of mercy for the deprived ministers without some assurance that they would conform. On May 3, when Yelverton reported to the House the results of the conference, the debate between the adherents of the bishops and their opponents waxed so acrimonious that the clerk of the House either became too interested to write or thought the remarks too indiscreet to be preserved, for he left only a series of dashes in the records. The balance of power lay with the opposition, for the House at once read a third time and sent up to the Lords, the bill to restrain the execution of canons ecclesiastical unless confirmed by Parliament, and the Act against scandalous and unworthy ministers. The Lord Chancellor delivered the bishops' final answer to the House and was, so Mr. Martin reported on May 13, "short and rough." He said, in substance, that obedience was the most desirable of virtues, and that, if the ministers had possessed it, they would not be in need of mercy. The objection of the Commons would be considered, the use of excommunication in minor matters would be reformed, but the House would do well to relinquish the subject to the bishops to whom it belonged. Not one whit daunted, the House despatched Sir Francis Bacon to the King with a long petition containing the grievances against the Canons, the oath ex officio, the deprivations, and the like,' and the Speaker communicated the gist of the petition to the King in person. James was gracious to both of them. But the attitude of the House of Commons had excited the hostility of the clergy in general, who, animated by the new spirit of institutional life which Bancroft had infused into them, were not 1 Cotton MSS. Cleopatra, F, II, f. 191, undated. |