Chap. VIII, ne HISTORY of the Puit1TANs, 395 " clfa/lical, than her ecclefajiicai fhould her temporal? and feeing fo .wren many and fo great perfonages with fome others, are trufted to do her Ei'zabeth, " majefty fervice in her eccl f aftical commi ton, whether it be convenient, r< that an offender ready to becenfured, fhould obtain, and publickly throw " into court a prohibition, to the delay of juftice, and to the difgrace and " difparagement of thofe who ferve freely, without all fee ,therein." The archbifhop caufed a lift to be made of divers cafes, wherein the chrifian court, as he called it, had been interrupted by the temporalfit- L of Wh t. ritditlion ; and of many caufes that had been taken out of the hands of °I' P' 537° the bithops courts, the high commiAn, and the court of delegates; the former authorifèd by immediate commiffion from the queen, and the lat- ter by a fpecial commiflion upon an appeal to her court ofChancery, But notwithftanding all thefe efforts of Whitgift and his fucceffor Bancroft, the number of prohibitions encreafed every year; the nobility, gentry, and But in vaix. judges, being too wife to fubjeft their eftates and liberties to a number of artful civilians, verfed in a codex or body of laws, of molt uncer- tain authority, and ftrangets to the common and flatute law, without the check of a prohibition; when it was notorious, that the canon law had been alwaysfence the reformation controuledby the laws andftatutes of the realm. Thus the civilians funk in their bufinefs under the two next archbifhops, till LAUD governed the church, who terrifying the judges from grant- ing prohibitions, the Spiritual courts, Star- chamber, Council table, and high comaetoners rode triumphant, fining, imprifoning, and banìfhing men at their pleafure, till they became as terrible as the Spant7h inqui ition, and brought upon the nation all the confufions and defolations of a civil war. From this time to the queen's death, there was a kind ofcefiation of arms f cfatienof between the church and puritans; the combatants were out of breath, or rtrover4 willing to wait for better times. Some apprehended that the puritans chúchánd were vanquifhed, and their numbers leffened by the fevere execution ofpuritans. the penal laws ; whereas it will appear by a furvey in the beginning of the next reign, that the non - conforming clergy were about fifteen hun- dred. But the true reafon was this, the queen was advanced in years, and could not live long in a courfe of nature, and the next heir to the crown being a prefbyterian, the bifhops were cautious of a&ing againft at party for whom his majefty had declared, not knowing what revenge he might take, when he was fixed on the throne; and the puritans were quiet, in hopes of great matters to be done for them upon the expe6ted change. Notwithflanding all former repulfes from court, the queen's laft par- liament, which fat in the year ióoi. renewed their attacks upon the E e e 2 eccle-
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