S2 INTRODUCTION. were convened before their diocesan ; when many of them were suspended and excommunicated for refusing to receive the sacrament at the rails.. Mr. Miles Burket, vicar of Patteshall in Northamptonshire, was prosecuted in the high commission, for administering the sacrament without the rails, and for not bowing at the name of Jesus. + Mr. Burton, Mr. Prynne, and Dr. Bastwick, already mentioned, having. been long 'confined in prison, were prosecuted in the star- chamber, whentheyreceived thefollowing dreadful sentence : Mr. Burton shall bedeprived of his living, anddegraded fromhis ministry, as Mr. Prynne and Dr. Bastwick had been already from their professions ; they shall each be fined .i5,000 ; they shall stand in the pillory at Westminster, and have their ears cut off; and because Prynne had lost his ,ears already, the remainder of the stumps shall be cut off, and he shall be stigmatized onbothhis cheeks with the letters S. L." for a seditious libeller; and they shall all three suffer perpetual imprisonment in the remotest parts of the kingdom. "t Thechurch of England and the governing prelates were now arrived at their highest power and splendour. The afflictednonconformists, andthose who favoured their cause,§ felt the relentless vengeance of the star-chamber and high commission. Dr. Williams, the excellent Bishop of Lincoln, was now removed from the court, and retired to his diocese. Here he connived at the nonconformists, and spoke with some keenness against the ceremonies. He once said, "That the puritans were the king's best subjects, and he was sure they would carry all at last." Laudbeing informed of this expression, caused an information to be lodged against him in the star-chamber, when, after suspension from all his offices and benefits in the high commission, hewas fined £10,000 to the king, £1,000 to Sir John Mounson, and committed to the Tower during the king's pleasure. Being sent to the Tower, his library and all his goods were seized, and sold to pay the fine. His papers being seized, two letters were found written to himby Mr. Osbaldeston, chief Wharton's Troubles of Laud, vol. i. p. 546-557. + Prynne's Cant. Doome, p. 96. 1: For a circumstantial account of the execution of this barbarous sen- tence, see Art. Henry Burton. Many of those who favoured the causeof the nonconformists,paid great sums of money to obtain their release from the ecclesiastical censure. And Mr. John Packer, a gentleman of exemplary piety, charity, and zeal for a further reformation, was most liberal in supporting the silenced ministers ; and he, aid £1,000 for one of them to be released.-MS. Chro nology, vol. iii. A.D. 1640, p.44.
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