514 LIVES OF THE PURITANS. WILLIAM BOURNE was fellow in the above university; but, upon his entrance into the ministerial office, he scrupled subscription to Whitgift's articles. He sought to be ordained by the Bishop of Chester, but without success, because he could not in conscience subscribe. He then waited upon his lordship of Peterborough, and was in like manner repelled. At last he made application to the Bishop of St. Asaph, when it seems he gained admittance without subscribing to what he did not believe. The following persons, all fellows in the university of Cambridge, were nonconformable to the orders of the church: Mr. Thomas Bindes, Mr. James Crowther, Mr. William Peachy, Mr. John Capper, and Mr. Sparke.. WILLIAM SMYTHURST was beneficed at Sherrington in Buckinghamshire ; but was convened before the high com- mission, and deprived ofhis living on account of his noncon- formity. This was about the year 1595, when the Earl of Essex, his great friend, repeatedly applied to the lord keeper for his restoration, but apparently without the least success. In one of these applications, he affirms, that Mr. Smythurst had by various methods been molested, and wrongfully pur- sued, by the governing ecclesiastics:* MR. ADERSTER, the puritanical minister of Gosberton in Lincolnshire, was tried in the year 1596, at the public assizes before Judge Anderson, who treated him with great cruelty. He had some years before been a great sufferer in the high commission at Lambeth, by silencing, deprivation, and other ecclesiastical censures, but was afterwards pardoned and restored. Being accused of the same things before Ander- son, he was treated worse than a dog; and the good man could not obtain his release without entering into bonds and suffering other grievances.* MR. B. BRIDGER was a poor persecuted nonconformist minister; who, March 31, 1603, presented a petition to the house of commons, complaining of the tyrannical proceed- ings of the ruling ecclesiastics, and praying for a redress of his grievances ; which was no sooner read than he was immediately sent a prisoner to the Tower. Being pressed Baker's MS. Collec. vol. aii. p. 211. t Ibid. vol. ay. p. 179. Strype's Annals, vol. iv. p. 266, 267.
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