38o The HISTORY of the PURITANS. Chap. VIII. queen and infteadof putting the Browni/ls to death, to fend them into banith- Elizabeth, ment. Upon this flatute Mr, yohnflon paftor of the brownf church, 5crvJ was conviEted, and all the goalswere cleared for the prefent ; th& the com mifiìoners tookcare within the compafs of another year to fill them again. Sufferings of The papifts were.diftrefíed by this, and the flatute of 23 Eliz, as much thepap;Jis. as. the Brownifs, though they met with much more favour from the ec- clefiaftical courts; the queen either loved or feared them, and wouldoften fay, the would never ranfack their confciences if they would be quiet ; but they were always libelling her majefly, and in continual plots againft her government. While the queen of Scots was alive, they fupported her pretenfions to the crown, and after her death they maintained in print the title of the Infanta of Spain: They were concerned with the Spa- niards in the invafion of 1588. which obliged the queen to confine fome of their chiefs in Wifbech Cafle; and other places of fafety, but the was tender of their lives. In the firft eleven years of her reign, not one Roman, catholick was profecuted capitally for religion ; in the next ten years,, when the pope had excommunicated the queen and the whole kingdom, and there had been dangerous rebellions in the north, there wereonly 12 priefts executed, and moft of them for matters againft the (tate. In the ten follow- ing years, when fwarms of priefis and jefuits came over from foreign femi- naries, to invite the catholicks to join with the Spaniards, the laws were girt cloler upon them, fifty priefts being executed, and fifty five banilhed;. but as loon as the danger was over, the laws were relaxed, andby reafon . of the ignorance and lazinefs of the beneficed clergy, the miflionaries. gained over fuch numbers of profelytes in the latter end of this reign,, as endangered the whole government and reformation in the beginning: of the next. 1594. The lait and finning hand was put to the prefbyterian- difcipline in A Ammar' Scotland this year. That kingdoïn had been governed bydifferent faEtions of kirk scot. during the minority of king fames, which prevented a full feulement of fairs of $ t- Y g land. religion. Thegeneral afembly in the year 1566. had approved of the Ge- neva dïfcipline, but the parliament did" not confirm the votes of the af- fembly, nor formally deprive the bifhops of their power, though all church affairs from that time-were managed by prejbyteries and general afemblies. In the year 15.74. they voted the bithops to be only paftors of one parifh; and toThew their power, they depofed the bifhop of Dun- held, and delated the bifhop of Glafgow.. In the year 1577. they ordain- ed that all bithops be called by their own names; and the next year voted the very name of a bifhop a grievance. In the year 158o; the general af-. fembly with one voice declared, diocefan epifcopacy to be unfcriptural and unlawful. The fame year king fames with his family, and the whole na- tion, fubfcribed a confeflion of faith, with a folemn league and covenant annexed
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