478 LIVES OF THE PURITANS. ever. The worthy prelate styled them " the people of these abominations ;" and added, that it, was by these marriages for two or three gencrations, that popery was so much countenanced in his day.. If this language had been used at the time that Leighton's was, it would no doubt have been equally resented. Though Leighton's book was written in spirit and language too warm for the times, yet Dr. Harris, who had particularly examined the work, says, " It was written with spirit, and more sense and learning than the writers of that stamp usually shewed in their productions."+ But the impartial reader will be the better able to judge for himself, from the following circumstantial account, as col- lected from the most authentic historians. On February 29, l629, Dr. Leighton, coming out of Blackfriars church, was seized by a warrant from the high commission court; and, by a multitude of men armed, was dragged to Bishop Laud's house. From thence, without any examination, he was carried to Newgate, and there clapt in irons, and thrust into a loathsome dog-hole, full of rats and mice; and the roof being uncovered, the rein and snow beat in upon him, having no bedding, nor place to make a fire, except the ruins of an old smoky chimney; where lie had neither meat nor drink from the Tuesday night till Thursday noon. In this loathsome and miserable place, he continued fifteen weeks, not any of his friends, or even his wife, being permitted to come near him, and was denied a copy ofhis commitment. On the fourth day after his imprisonment, the pursuivants belonging to the high commission went to his house, and laid violent hands upoti his distressed wife, using her with the most shameful and barbarous inhumanity ; and holding a pistol to the breast of a child five years old, threatening to kill him, if he would not inform them where thebooks were, by which the child was so frightened, that lie never recovered. They broke open presses, chests, boxes, &c. though his wife was willing to open all. They carried away all the books,manuscripts, apparel, household stuff, and other things, leaving nothing they wished to possess. During his confinement in New- gate, it appeared from the opinion of four physicians, that poison hadbeen given him . for his hair and skin came off. As he lay in this deplorable situation, sentence was passed upon him in the star-chamber, even without hearing a single word he had to say, though a certificate from four 4. Peirce's Vindication, part i. p. 178. t Harris's Life of Charles I. p. 225.
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