50 INTRODUCTION'. name ; and that in other places, a great number of persons occupying cures, were notoriously unfit, some for lack of learning, and others chargeable with enormous faults : as, drunkenness, filthiness of life, gaming at cards, haunting. of ale-houses, &c. against whom they heard of no pro - ceedings. "* The Lord Treasurer Burleigh, also, him- self addressed the archbishop, saying, 44 I am sorry to trouble you so oft as I do, but I ammore troubled myself, not only with many private petitions of ministers, recom- mended for persons of credit, and peaceable in their ministry, who are greatly troubled by your grace and your colleagues ; but I am daily charged by counsellors and public persons, with neglect of my duty, in not staying your grace's vehement proceedings against minis- ters, whereby papists are encouraged, and the queen's safety endangered.-I have read over your twenty-four articles, formed in a Romish style, to examine all manner of ministers, and to be executed ex officio nuro. I think the Inquisition of Spain used not so many questions to comprehend and to trap their priests. Surely this judicial and canonical sifting of poor ministers, is not to edify or reform. This kind of proceeding is toomuch savouring of the Romish Inquisition, and is a device to seek for offenders, rather than to reform thein."f But these appli- cations were to no purpose : for, as Fuller observes, 44 This was the constant custom of Whitgift ; if any lord or lady sued for favour to any nonconformist, he would profess how glad he was to serve them, and gratify their desires, assuring themfor his part, that all possible kindness should be indulged to them, but he would remit nothing of his rigour. Thus he never denied any great man's desire, and yet never granted it ; pleasing them for the present with general promises, but still kept to his own resolution ; whereupon the nobility ceased making any further applica- tion to him, knowing them tobe ineffectual."t The commons in parliament, at the same time, were not unmindful of the liberties of the subject. They presented a petition to the upper house, consisting ofsixteen articles, with a view to further the reformation of the church, to remove the grievances of the puritans, and to promote an union of the conformists and nonconformists. But by the opposition of the bishops, nothing could be done.g All that the puritans could obtain, was a kind of conference Fuller's Church Hist. b. ix, p. 151. + Ibid. p. 155. Ibid. p. 218. § D. Ew es's Journal, p. 351-849.
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