Archbishop took himself freed from much opposi

tion.

4

Upon the death of the said Earl, the Chancellorship of Oxford being void, divers of the heads and others of the University, made known unto the Archbishop their desire to chuse him their Chancellor, although he was a Cambridge man. To whom he returned this answer, That he was already their friend, whereof they might rest assured; and therefore advised them to make choice of some other in near place about the Queen, that might assist him on their behalf: and both at the councilboard, and other places of justice, right them many ways, both for the benefit of the University, and their particular colleges. And therewithal recommended unto them Sir Christopher Hatton, being sometime of that University; whom accordingly they did chuse for their Chancellor, and whom the Archbishop ever found a great assistant in bridling and reforming the intemperate humour of these novelists, who by the countenance of the aforesaid great personages (Earl of Leicester, &c.) were now grown to a strong head.

For, in the year 1588, came forth those hateful libels of Martin Marprelate; and much about the same time, the Epitome; the Demonstration of Discipline; the Supplication; Diotrephes; the Minerals; Have you any Work for a Cooper; Martin Junior, alias Theses Martiniana; Martin Senior; More Work for a Cooper; and other such like bastardly pamphlets, which might well be Nullius filii, because no man durst father their births. All which were printed with a kind of wandering press, which was first set up at Moulsey, near Kingston upon Thames, and from thence conveyed to Fausly in Northamptonshire, and from thence to Norton, afterwards to Coventry, from thence to Welstone in Warwickshire, from which place the letters were sent to another press in or near Manchester, where (by the means of Henry, that good Earl of Derby) the press was discovered in printing of More Work for a Cooper. Which shameless libels were fraughted only with odious and scurrilous calumniations against the established government, and such reverend prelates as deserved honour with uprighter judgments.

Some of the printers, whilst they were busied about the last libel, were apprehended; who, with the entertainers, and receivers of the press, were proceeded against in the Star-chamber, and there censured; but upon their submission (at the humble suit of the Archbishop) were both delivered out of prison, and eased of their fines. The authors and penners of some of these libels were, John Penry and John Udall; the chief disperser of them was Humphrey Newman, a cobler, a choice broker for such sowterly wares, and in regard of his hempenly trade, a fit person to cherish up Martin's birds, who (as Pliny writeth) do feed so greedily upon hemp-seed, that they be oftentimes choaked therewith. Such was the unfortunate end of some of his Martin birds; as appeareth upon record in the King's-Bench, against John Penry, Clerk, Termino Pasch. 1593, and at an assize in Surrey against John Udall, whose pardon the Archbishop afterwards obtained.

Thus the factious ministers, zealous of pretended discipline, having with these seditious libels (as the fore-rangers and harbingers of their further designs)

designs) made way in the hearts of the vulgar (who ever are apt to entertain novelties, though it be with danger and detriment to themselves; and specially if it have a shew of restraining the authority of their superiors) they thought it the fittest time to prosecute their projects. And while one sort of them were maliciously busied in slandering the state of the church already settled, the other were as seditiously employed in planting the discipline which they had newly plotted. Whereupon shortly after Thomas Cartwright, and Edmund Snape, with others, were called in question, and proceeded withal in the Star-chamber, for setting forth, and putting in practice (without warrant or authority) a new form of common prayers, and administration of the sacraments and presbyterial discipline. The particularities of which their dangerous plots, and positions (though most secretly carried amongst men only of their own combination) were by Dr. Bancroft first discovered, and by the Archbishop and the Lord Chancellor farther brought to light, as the records themselves in the Star-chamber do testify, and may at large appear in Doctor Bancroft's Survey of the Pretended Discipline; and Dangerous Positions under pretence of Reformation: Wherein also you shall see these disciplinarians to exceed other ministers, from whom they have their presbyterial platform, in threatening, railing, and undutiful speeches, against their sovereign, the high court of parliament, the most honourable privy council, the Archbishops and Bishops, the reverend Judges of the land, and lawyers of both

5 Form of common prayer.] "A booke of the Forme of Common Prayers, Administration of the Sacraments, &c. agreeable to God's worde, and the use of the reformed

Churches; Middleburgh 1586." 12mo.

VOL. IV.

Aa

professions:

professions: and generally against all magistrates, and other inferior ministers of justice, and officers under them, that do maintain the present government of the church of England, and withstand their desire.

It was therefore high time for the Archbishop and state to look strictly to these perturbers of our church's happy quiet. But if we shall take a further view of those enormous, and desperate courses, which after ensued (though all branches growing out of the same root) we shall be far from accusing cither the Archbishop of too much vigilancy, or the civil magistrates of overmuch severity, in cutting off some of those outrageous and unbridled sectaries.

Three principal there were among them deeply infaturated with this reforming spirit; William Hacket, Yeoman; Edmund Coppinger, and Henry Arthington, Gentlemen; all of them strongly possessed, at the first, with an earnest desire of the late invented discipline, and carried violently with the strength of their erroneous fancy, into a desperate and lamentable course; whereof, though I will suppose that many are innocent, who were led with the same spirit and desire of reformation with them in the beginning; yet I an induced by just and weighty reasons to conceive, that, unless the vigilancy of the Magistrates had timely prevented their courses, the intemperate zeal of these novelists, finding no certain ground to stay itself upon, nor any determinate end where it might finally rest, would have broken out into some like combustion, and flame, as these aforenamed did, whereof I will give you but a little taste. Two of these, Edmund Coppinger and Henry Arthington, came into Cheapside, July 16, 1591, and there in a cart proclaimed news from Heaven, to wit, "That one

William

William Hacket, yeoman, represented Christ, by partaking his glorious body in his principal spirit, and that they were two prophets, the one of mercy, the other of judgment, called and sent of God to assist him in his great work, &c." But because the weight of the matter requireth a larger discourse than is fit to be inserted in this work, I refer the reader for the rest unto Doctor Cosin's book, intituled Conspiracy for Pretended Reformation: where he shall find their purposes, plots, and designments, with many other markable things at large discoursed, and taken truly out of their conference and writings under their own hands, with their confessions and examinations, subscribed by themselves before sundry honourable and worshipful personages, of great gravity and wisdom, employed in those affairs. By all which, together with their temperate, direct, and pertinent speech, and congruity of phrase and matter, both before and after their apprehension, it will clearly appear, that the said conspirators were not madmen (unless it be a kind of madness to be a violent * prosecutor of this reformation, as indeed it is) howsoever some of that fraternity and sect have so given it out; chusing thereby rather to accuse the honourable justice of the realm, and all the ministers thereof, than that any, professing desire of pretended reformation, should be noted with deep disloyalty, as they were charged withal.

When the Queen and State saw the incredible height of these audacious attempts, so dangerous to the commonwealth, thus knotted and countenanced under pretence of reforming the Church, they found it necessary to stop the fountains of these proceedings, lest it might grow to the like