his INTRODUCTION. many years. Mr. Udal was summoned before the council, sent close prisoner to the Gatehouse, and not suffered to have pen, ink, or paper, or any one to speak to him. He was afterwards tried at the public assizes and condemned as a felon. Having received sentence of death, pardon was offered him if he would have recanted ; but he continued brm to his principles, and died in the IVIarshalsea, as a martyr in the cause of religious liberty. The proceedings of the high commission against the afflicted puritans, now exceeding all bounds, men of the greatest eminence began even to question the legality of the court. But the archbishop, to get over this difficulty, and remove the odium from himself, sent the principal nonconformists, especially those possessedof worldly estates, to be prosecuted in the star-chamber.t Indeed, several of the bishops, as well as many of the lords temporal, opposed these proceedings ; and it appears from a list now befbre me, that upwards of one hundred and twenty of the house of commons, were not only averse to persecution, but zea, ions advocates for a reformation of the church, and the removal of those burdens under which the puritans groaned.t Therefore, in 1588, a bill against pluralities and nonresidence passed the commons, and was carried up to the lords ; but by the determined opposition of the zealous prelates, it came to nothing.t The puritans still continued to hold their associations. Many divines, highly celebrated both for learning and piety, were leaders in their assemblies, and chosen mode- rators : as, Messrs. Knewstubs, Gifford, Rogers, Fenn and Cartwright§ At one of these assemblies, held at Coventry, it was resolved, " That private baptism is unlawful.-, That the sign of the crossought not to be used inbaptism.- That the faithful ought not to communicate with ignorant ministers.-That the calling of bishops is unlawful. - That it is not lawful to be ordained by them, nor to rest in their deprivation of any from the ministry.---And that Fuller's Church Hist. b. ix. p. 187. + MS. Chronology, vol. ii. p. 417. (15.) During the debate upon this bill in the upper houses, when it was signified that the queen would confer with the bishops upon the points contained in the bill, the celebrated Lord Gray said, " he greatly won- dered at her majesty choosing to confer with those who were enemies to the reformation ; and added, that he wished the bishops might be served as they were in the days of Henry VIII. when they were all thrust out of doors.' --Strype's Annals, vol. iii. p. 543. -Fuller's Church Hist. b. p. 190. § Strype's Annals, vol. iii. p. 470, 471.
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