Chap. IX. The HISTORY of-the PURITANS. 733 All the bithops were under a cloud, and in no degree of favour either IC. CharlesI. With the parliament or people, except the bithop of Lincoln, who having r6ov^J fome years been in prifon, had no (hare in the late innovations. This pre- BI/hop of late in the recels of parliament, vifited his diocefe ; and exhorted the Lincoln's people in his fermons to keep to their lawful minifter, and not goafter tub vjtat:on.. preachers in conventicler. He acquainted them with the laws, and told them that no power could protest them from the penalty of ftatutes un- repealed. " Look back (lays his lordfhip) from the beginning ofqueen " Elizabeth. Can the gofpel (land better againft the church of Rome than " it has done under the bithops, liturgy, and canons? Therefore don't. " abandon the good old way, for another which you do not know how " much evil may be ip it." But his rhetoric had very little effect ; nor did the parliament approve of his conduct, at a time when his majetly was out of the, kingdom, and when it was refolved to attempt fome con fiderable alterations in the hierarchy. The diftrattions in the date were no lefs threatening than thofe of the Diliraaed' church. The plague was in the city of London, which difperfed the mem-fate of rb ' bers, fo that they could hardly make a houle. The difbanding,the army nation.. infefted the roads with highway -men, infomuch that it was hardly fafe to travel from one town to another. The officers (many of whomwere pa- pifts) crouded to London, and took lodgings about Covent- Garden and Whitehall, under pretence of receiving the remainder of their pay; thefe .behaved with unufual infolence, and ftruck terror into the minds of the people. The mob was frequently up in one part of the town or another ;, one while they threatened the pope's nuncio, and another while the queen mother, upon which they retired out of the kingdom ; but the queen herfelf ftood by her friends : ilae had a convent of capuchins in her court, and protected great numbersof theking's fubjeEts and others, from the fentence of the laws. The lord mayor was commanded to bring in a lift of popifh reculants about London; and all the papitis in the feveral counties were ordered to be difarmed ; " which though it had little or no Vol.!.. " effeét ( lays lord Clarendon) ferved to keep up fears and apprehen- P. 290. " fions in the people of dangers and defgns;," whichwill appear pre- fently not to have been groundlefs. This was the melancholy hate of the nation, when on a fudden it was thunder-ftruck with the furprizing news of one of the moll barbarons maffacres of the proteftants in Ireland that the, records of any age or nation can. produce. Lord Clarendon is of opinion, that the parliament inftead of adjourn- Remarks. ing, (hould now have broken up and returned home, fence the principal grievances of church and hate had been redreffed, and the conftitution fe- cured by the aft for triennialparliaments. But not to trouble the reader with affairs of pate; what religious grievances were actually redrefl'ed ?: except
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