58 Elizabeth, the wiser of them much oppos'd the ·admission of her son: but he dissembling the resentment of his mother's death; by bribes and greater promises, manag'd a faction in the court of the decl ining queene, which prevail'd on her dotage .to destroy the Earle of Essex, who only had courage to have kept out him they thought dangerous to lett in.' So ·subti lly brought they their purpose about, that wise councell was in vaine to a blinded and betrey'd people. The antiprelaticall party hoping that with a king bred up· ·among the Calvinists, they should now be freed from the episcopal yoake, were greedie of entertaining him, but soone cmed of their mistake, when immediately after his entry into the kingdome, himselfe being moderator at a dispute betweene both parties, the non- ·conformists were cast out of doores, the offensive ceremonies, insteed of being remoov'd, were more strictly impos'd, the penalties against papists relax'd, many of them taken into favour, those families who suffer: cl for his mother grac' cl and restor'cl as far re as the times would beare, and those who consented any way to the iustice done upon her, disfavour'd. A progresse was made suitable to this beginning, the· protestant interest abroad was ?eserted and betrey'd, the prelates at home dayly exalted in pride and pomp, and declining in vertue and godlinesse, Arminianisme"· crept in, to the corruption of sound ·doctrine, till at length they had the, impudence to forbid preaching of those greate and necessary truths, concerning the decrees of God; secret treaties were entertained with the court of Rome,' and notthan the mean jenlousy attributed to Queen Elizabeth, which would in fact have been _a better reason for putting her to death many years sooner. Y In 1-Ieylin's H istory of th~ Presbyter ians, it is said that the Eml of Essex was much courted by the Pllritans, and· in return caressed. them; that a title to the crown was drawn out for him, and he began to look up to it; that he encouraged an opinion, that inferior magistrates might curb and control their sovereign ; that he was outwitted and brought to the scaffold by Cccil and Rawleigh, very opportunely for King James, whose entrance might have been opposed and his title questioned. z James, however, professed himself a great enemy to it. • The first volume of Clarendon's State Papers is half filled with them.
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