CHAPTER XIV.

Mr. Sharpe, weaver, of Bristol, was brought the 9th day of March, 1556, before Mr. Dalby, chancellor of the city of Bristol, and after examination concerning the sacrament of the altar, was persuaded to recant; and on the 29th, he was enjoined to make his recantation in the parish church. But, scarcely had he publicly avowed his backsliding, before he felt in his conscience such a tormenting fiend, that he was unable to work at his occupation; hence, shortly after, one Sunday, he came into the parish church, called Temple, and after high mass, stood up in the choir door, and said with a loud voice, "Neighbours, bear me record that yonder idol (pointing to the altar) is the greatest and most abominable that ever was; and I am sorry that ever I denied my Lord God!" Notwithstanding the constables were ordered to apprehend him, he was suffered to go out of the church; but at night he was apprehended and carried to Newgate. Shortly after, before the chancellor, denying the sacrament of the altar to be the body and blood of Christ, he was condemned to be burned by Mr. Dalby. He was burnt the 7th of May, 1558, and died godly, patiently, and constantly, confessing the protestant articles of faith.

With him suffered Thomas Hale, shoemaker, of Bristol, who was condemned by chancellor Dalby. These martyrs were bound back to back.

Thomas Banion, a weaver, was burnt on August 27th, of the same year, and died for the sake of the evangelical cause of his Saviour.

With pleasure we have to record that these five martyrs were the last who suffered in the reign of Mary for the sake of the protestant cause; but the malice of the papists was conspicuous in hastening their martyrdom, which might have been delayed till the event of the queen's illness was decided. It is reported that the archdeacon of Canterbury, judging that the sudden death of the queen would suspend the execution, travelled post from London, to have the satisfaction of adding another page to the black list of papistical sacrifices.

The articles against them were, as usual, the sacramental elements and the idolatry of bending to images. They quoted St. John's words, "Beware of images!" and respecting the real presence, they urged according to St. Paul, "the things that be seen are temporal." When sentence was about to be read against them, and excommunication take place in the regular form, John Corneford, illuminated by the Holy Spirit, awfully turned the latter proceeding against themselves, and in a solemn impressive manner, recriminated their excommunication in the following words: "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the most mighty God, and by the power of his holy Spirit, and the authority of his holy catholic and apostolic church, we do here give into the hands of Satan to be destroyed, the bodies of all those blasphemers and heretics that maintain any error against his most holy word, or do condemn his most holy truth for heresy, to the maintenance of any false church or foreign religion, so that by this thy just judgment, O most mighty God, against thy adversaries, thy true religion may be known to thy great glory and our comfort and to the edifying of all our nation. Good Lord, so be it. Amen."

This sentence was openly pronounced and registered, and, as if Providence had awarded that it should not be delivered in vain, within six days after, queen Mary died, detested by all good men and accursed of God! Though acquainted with these circumstances, the archdeacon's implacability exceeded that of his great exemplary, Bonner, who, though he had several persons at that time under his fiery grasp, did not urge their deaths hastily, by which delay he certainly afforded them an opportunity of escape. Father Lining and his wife, with several others, thus saved their lives, who, had they been under the barbarous archdeacon, must inevitably have perished. At the queen's decease, many were in bonds: some just taken, some examined, and others condemned. The writs indeed were issued for several burnings, but by the death of the three instigators of protestant murder,—the chancellor, the bishop, and the queen, who fell nearly together, the condemned sheep were liberated, and lived many years to praise God for their happy deliverance.

These five martyrs, when at the stake, earnestly prayed that their blood might be the last shed, nor did they pray in vain. They died gloriously, and perfected the number God had selected to hear witness of the truth in this dreadful reign, whose names are recorded in the Book of Life;—though last, not least among the saints made meet for immortality through the redeeming blood of the Lamb!

Catharine Finlay, alias Knight, was first converted by her son's expounding the Scriptures to her, which wrought in her a perfect work that terminated in martyrdom. Alice Snoth at the stake sent for her grandmother and godfather, and rehearsed to them the articles of her faith, and the commandments of God, thereby convincing the world that she knew her duty. She died calling upon the spectators to bear witness that she was a Christian woman, and suffered joyfully for the testimony of Christ's gospel.

Among the numberless enormities committed by the merciless and unfeeling Bonner, the murder of this innocent and unoffending child may be ranked as the most horrid. His father, John Fetty, of the parish of Clerkenwell, by trade a tailor, and only twenty-four years of age, had made a blessed election; he was fixed secure in eternal hope, and depended on Him who so builds his church that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. But alas! the very wife of his bosom, whose heart was hardened against the truth, and whose mind was influenced by the teachers of false doctrine, became his accuser. Brokenbery, a creature of the pope, and parson of the parish, received the information of this wedded Delilah, in consequence of which the poor man was apprehended. But here the awful judgment of an ever-righteous God, "who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity," fell upon this stone-hearted and perfidious woman; for no sooner was the injured husband captured by her wicked contriving, than she also was suddenly seized with madness, and exhibited an awful and awakening instance of God's power to punish the evil doer. This dreadful circumstance had some effect upon the hearts of the ungodly hunters who had eagerly grasped their prey; but, in a relenting moment, they suffered him to remain with his unworthy wife, to return her good for evil, and to comfort two children, who, on his being sent to prison, would have been left without a protector, or have become a burden to the parish. As bad men act from little motives, we may place the indulgence shown him to the latter account.

We have noticed in the former part of our narratives of the martyrs, some whose affection would have led them even to sacrifice their own lives, to preserve their husbands; but here, agreeable to Scripture language, a mother proves, indeed, a monster in nature! Neither conjugal nor maternal affection could impress the heart of this disgraceful woman.

Although our afflicted Christian had experienced so much cruelty and falsehood from the woman who was bound to him by every tie, both human and divine, yet, with a mild and forbearing spirit, he overlooked her misdeeds, during her calamity endeavouring all he could to procure relief for her malady, and soothing her by every possible expression of tenderness: thus she became in a few weeks nearly restored to her senses. But, alas! she returned again to her sin, "as the dog returneth to his vomit." Malice against the saints of the Most High was seated in her heart too firmly to be removed; and as her strength returned, her inclination to work wickedness returned with it. Her heart was hardened by the prince of darkness; and to her may be applied these afflicting and soul-harrowing words, "can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then will they do good who are accustomed to do evil." Weighing this text duly with another, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy," how shall we presume to refine away the sovereignty of God, by arraigning Jehovah at the bar of human reason, which, in religious matters, is too often opposed by infinite wisdom? "Broad is the way which leadeth to death, and many walk therein. Narrow is the way which leadeth to life, and few there be who find it." The ways of heaven are indeed inscrutable, and it is our bounden duty to walk ever dependent on God, looking up to him with humble confidence, and hope in his goodness, and ever confess his justice; and where we "cannot unravel, there learn to trust." This wretched woman, pursuing the horrid dictates of a heart hardened and depraved, was scarcely confirmed in her recovery, when, stifling the dictates of honour, gratitude, and every natural affection, she again accused her husband, who was once more apprehended, and taken before Sir John Mordant, Knight, and one of queen Mary's commissioners.

Upon examination, his judge finding him fixed to opinions which militated against those nursed by superstition and maintained by cruelty he was sentenced to confinement and torture in Lollard's Tower. "Here (says honest Fox) he was put into the painful stocks, and had a dish of water set by him, with a stone put into it, to what purpose God knoweth, except it were to show that he should look for little other subsistence: which is credible enough, if we consider their like practices upon divers before mentioned in this history; as, among others, upon Richard Smith, who died through their cruel imprisonment; touching whom, when a godly woman came to Dr. Story to have leave that she might bury him, he asked her if he had any straw or blood in his mouth; but what he means thereby, I leave to the judgment of the wise."

On the first day of the third week of our martyr's sufferings, an object presented itself to his view, which made him indeed feel his tortures with all their force, and to execrate, with bitterness only short of cursing, the author of his misery. To mark and punish the proceedings of his tormentors, remained with the Most High, who noteth even the fall of a sparrow, and in whose sacred word it is written, "Vengeance is mine, and I will repay." This object was his own son, a child of the tender age of eight years. For fifteen days, had its hapless father been suspended by his tormentor by the right arm and left leg, and sometimes by both, shifting his positions for the purpose of giving him strength to bear and to lengthen the date of his sufferings. When the unoffending innocent, desirous of seeing and speaking to its parent, applied to Bonner for permission so to do, the poor child being asked by the bishop's chaplain the purport of his errand, he replied, he wished to see his father. "Who is thy father?" said the chaplain. "John Fetty," returned the boy, at the same time pointing to the place where he was confined. The interrogating miscreant on this said, "Why, thy father is a heretic!" The little champion again rejoined, with energy sufficient to raise admiration in any breast, except that of this unprincipled and unfeeling wretch—this miscreant, eager to execute the behests of a remorseless queen—"My father is no heretic: for you have Balaam's mark."

Irritated by reproach so aptly applied, the indignant and mortified priest concealed his resentment for a moment, and took the undaunted boy into the house, where, having him secure, he presented him to others, whose baseness and cruelty being equal to his own, they stripped him to the skin, and applied their scourges to so violent a degree, that, fainting beneath the stripes inflicted on his tender frame, and covered with the blood that flowed from them, the victim of their ungodly wrath was ready to expire under his heavy and unmerited punishment.

In this bleeding and helpless state was the suffering infant, covered only with his shirt, taken to his father by one of the actors in the horrid tragedy, who, while he exhibited the heart-rending spectacle, made use of the vilest taunts, and exulted in what he had done. The dutiful child, as if recovering strength at the sight of his father, on his knees implored his blessing. "Alas! Will," said the afflicted parent, in trembling amazement, "who hath done this to thee!" The artless innocent related the circumstances that led to the merciless correction which had been so basely inflicted on him; but when he repeated the reproof bestowed on the chaplain, and which was prompted by an undaunted spirit, he was torn from his weeping parent, and conveyed again to the house, where he remained a close prisoner.

Bonner, somewhat fearful that what had been done could not be justified even among the bloodhounds of his own voracious pack, concluded in his dark and wicked mind, to release John Fetty, for a time at least, from the severities he was enduring in the glorious cause of everlasting truth! whose bright rewards are fixed beyond the boundaries of time, within the confines of eternity; where the arrow of the wicked cannot wound, even "where there shall be no more sorrowing for the blessed, who, in the mansion of eternal bliss shall glorify the Lamb forever and ever." He was accordingly by order of Bonner, (how disgraceful to all dignity, to say bishop!) liberated from the painful bonds, and led from Lollard's Tower, to the chamber of that ungodly and infamous butcher, where, says Fox, he found the bishop bathing himself before a great fire; and at his first entering the chamber, Fetty said, "God be here and peace!" "God be here and peace, (said Bonner,) that is neither God speed nor good morrow!" "If ye kick against this peace, (said Fetty,) then this is not the place that I seek for."

A chaplain of the bishop, standing by, turned the poor man about and thinking to abash him, said, in mocking wise, "What have we here—a player!" While Fetty was thus standing in the bishop's chamber, he espied, hanging about the bishop's bed, a pair of great black beads, whereupon he said, "My Lord, I think the hangman is not far off; for the halter (pointing to the beads) is here already!" At which words the bishop was in a marvellous rage. Then he immediately after espied also, standing in the bishop's chamber, in the window, a little crucifix. Then he asked the bishop what it was, and he answered, that it was Christ. "Was he handled as cruelly as he is here pictured?" said Fetty. "Yea, that he was," said the bishop. "And even so cruelly will you handle such as come before you; for you are unto God's people as Caiaphas was unto Christ!" The bishop, being in a great fury, said, "Thou art a vile heretic, and I will burn thee, or else I will spend all I have, unto my gown." "Nay, my Lord, (said Fetty) you were better to give it to some poor body, that he may pray for you." Bonner, notwithstanding his passion, which was raised to the utmost by the calm and pointed remarks of this observing Christian, thought it most prudent to dismiss the father, on account of the nearly murdered child. His coward soul trembled for the consequences which might ensue; fear is inseparable from little minds; and this dastardly pampered priest experienced its effects so far as to induce him to assume the appearance of that he was an utter stranger to, namely, MERCY.

The father, on being dismissed, by the tyrant Bonner, went home with a heavy heart, with his dying child, who did not survive many days the cruelties which had been inflicted on him. How contrary to the will of our great King and Prophet, who mildly taught his followers, was the conduct of this sanguinary and false teacher, this vile apostate from his God to Satan! But the arch-fiend had taken entire possession of his heart, and guided every action of the sinner he had hardened: who, given up to terrible destruction, was running the race of the wicked, marking his footsteps with the blood of the saints, as if eager to arrive at the goal of eternal death.

This eminent prelate, vice-chancellor of Cambridge, at the request of the duke of Northumberland, when he came down to Cambridge in support of Lady Jane Grey's claim to the throne, undertook at a few hours notice, to preach before the duke and the university. The text he took was such as presented itself in opening the Bible, and a more appropriate one he could not have chosen, namely, the three last verses of Joshua. As God gave him the text, so he gave him also such order and utterance, that it excited the most lively emotions in his numerous auditors. The sermon was about to be sent to London to be printed, when news arrived that the duke had returned and queen Mary was proclaimed.

The duke was immediately arrested, and Dr. Sands was compelled by the university to give up his office. He was arrested by the queen's order, and when Mr. Mildmay wondered that so learned a man could wilfully incur danger, and speak against so good a princess as Mary, the doctor replied, "If I would do as Mr. Mildmay has done, I need not fear bonds. He came down armed against queen Mary; before a traitor—now a great friend. I cannot with one mouth blow hot and cold in this manner." A general plunder of Dr. Sands' property ensued, and he was brought to London upon a wretched horse. Various insults he met on the way from the bigoted catholics, and as he passed through Bishopsgate-street, a stone struck him to the ground. He was the first prisoner that entered the tower, in that day, on a religious account; his man was admitted with his Bible, but his shirts and other articles were taken from him.

On Mary's coronation-day, the doors of the dungeon were so laxly guarded, that it was easy to escape. A Mr. Mitchell, like a true friend, came to him, afforded him his own clothes as a disguise, and was willing to abide the consequence of being found in his place. This was a rare friendship: but he refused the offer; saying, "I know no cause why I should be in prison. To do thus, were to make myself guilty. I will expect God's good will, yet do I think myself much obliged to you:" and so Mr. Mitchell departed.

With doctor Sands was imprisoned Mr. Bradford; they were kept close in prison twenty-nine weeks. John Fowler, their keeper, was a perverse papist, yet, by often persuading him, at length he began to favour the gospel, and was so persuaded in the true religion, that on a Sunday, when they had mass in the chapel, Dr. Sands administered the communion to Bradford and to Fowler. Thus Fowler was their son begotten in bonds. To make room for Wyat and his accomplices, Dr. Sands and nine other preachers were sent to the Marshalsea.

The keeper of the Marshalsea appointed to every preacher a man to lead him in the street; he caused them to go on before, and he and Dr. Sands followed conversing together. By this time popery began to be unsavoury. After they had passed the bridge, the keeper said to Dr. Sands, "I perceive the vain people would set you forward to the fire. You are as vain as they, if you, being a young man, will stand in your own conceit, and prefer your own judgment before that of so many worthy prelates, ancient, learned, and grave men as be in this realm. If you do so, you shall find me a severe keeper, and one that utterly dislikes your religion." Dr. Sands answered, "I know my years to be young, and my learning but small; it is enough to know Christ crucified, and he hath learned nothing who seeth not the great blasphemy that is in popery. I will yield unto God, and not unto man; I have read in the Scriptures of many godly and courteous keepers: may God make you one! if not, I trust he will give me strength and patience to bear your hard usage." Then said the keeper, "Are you resolved to stand to your religion?" "Yes," quoth the doctor, "by God's grace!" "Truly," said the keeper, "I love you the better for it; I did but tempt you: what favour I can show you, you shall be assured of; and I shall think myself happy if I might die at the stake with you." He was as good as his word, for he trusted the doctor to walk in the fields alone, where he met with Mr. Bradford, who was also a prisoner in the King's Bench, and had found the same favour from his keeper. At his request, he put Mr. Saunders in along with him, to be his bed-fellow, and the communion was administered to a great number of communicants.

When Wyat with his army came to Southwark, he offered to liberate all the imprisoned protestants, but Dr. Sands and the rest of the preachers refused to accept freedom on such terms.

After Dr. Sands had been nine weeks prisoner in the Marshalsea, by the mediation of Sir Thomas Holcroft, knight marshal, he was set at liberty. Though Mr. Holcroft had the queen's warrant, the bishop commanded him not to set Dr. Sands at liberty, until he had taken sureties of two gentlemen with him, each one bound in £500, that Dr. Sands should not depart out of the realm without license. Mr. Holcroft immediately after met with two gentlemen of the north, friends and cousins to Dr. Sands, who offered to be bound for him.

After dinner, the same day, Sir Thomas Holcroft sent for Dr. Sands to his lodging at Westminster, to communicate to him all he had done. Dr. Sands answered, "I give God thanks, who hath moved your heart to mind me so well, that I think myself most bound unto you. God shall requite you, nor shall I ever be found unthankful. But as you have dealt friendly with me, I will also deal plainly with you. I came a freeman into prison; I will not go forth a bondman. As I cannot benefit my friends, so will I not hurt them. And if I be set at liberty, I will not tarry six days in this realm, if I may get out. If therefore I may not get free forth, send me to the Marshalsea again, and there you shall be sure of me."

This answer Mr. Holcroft much disapproved of; but like a true friend he replied, "Seeing you cannot be altered, I will change my purpose, and yield unto you. Come of it what will, I will set you at liberty; and seeing you have a mind to go over sea, get you gone as quick as you can. One thing I require of you, that, while you are there, you write nothing to me hither, for this may undo me."

Dr. Sands having taken an affectionate farewell of him, and his other friends in bonds, departed. He went by Winchester house, and there took boat, and came to a friend's house in London, called William Banks, and tarried there one night. The next night he went to another friend's house, and there he heard that strict search was making for him, by Gardiner's express order.

Dr. Sands now conveyed himself by night to one Mr. Berty's house, a stranger who was in the Marshalsea prison with him a while; he was a good protestant and dwelt in Mark-lake. There he was six days, and then removed to one of his acquaintances in Cornhill; he caused his man Quinton to provide two geldings for him, resolved on the morrow to ride into Essex, to Mr. Sands, his father-in-law, where his wife was, which after a narrow escape, he effected. He had not been there two hours, before Mr. Sands was told that two of the guards would that night apprehend Dr. Sands.

That night Dr. Sands was guided to an honest farmer's near the sea, where he tarried two days and two nights in a chamber without company. After that he removed to one James Mower's, a ship-master, who dwelt at Milton-Shore, where he waited for a wind to Flanders. While he was there, James Mower brought to him forty or fifty mariners, to whom he gave an exhortation; they liked him so well, that they promised to die rather than he should be apprehended.

The sixth of May, Sunday, the wind served. In taking leave of his hostess, who had been married eight years without having a child, he gave her a fine handkerchief and an old royal of gold, and said, "Be of good comfort; before that one whole year be past, God shall give you a child, a boy." This came to pass, for, that day twelvemonth, wanting one day, God gave her a son.

Scarcely had he arrived at Antwerp, when he learned that king Philip had sent to apprehend him. He next flew to Augsburgh, in Cleveland, where Dr. Sands tarried fourteen days, and then travelled towards Strasburgh, where, after he had lived one year, his wife came to him. He was sick of a flux nine months, and had a child which died of the plague. His amiable wife at length fell into a consumption, and died in his arms. When his wife was dead, he went to Zurich, and there was in Peter Martyr's house for the space of five weeks. As they sat at dinner one day, word was suddenly brought that queen Mary was dead, and Dr. Sands was sent for by his friends at Strasburgh, where he preached. Mr. Grindall and he came over to England, and arrived in London the same day that queen Elizabeth was crowned. This faithful servant of Christ, under queen Elizabeth, rose to the highest distinctions in the church, being successively bishop of Worcester, bishop of London, and archbishop of York.

The preservation of the princess Elizabeth may be reckoned a remarkable instance of the watchful eye which Christ had over his church. The bigotry of Mary regarded not the ties of consanguinity, of natural affection, of national succession. Her mind, physically morose was under the dominion of men who possessed not the milk of human kindness, and whose principles were sanctioned and enjoined by the idolatrous tenets of the Romish pontiff. Could they have foreseen the short date of Mary's reign, they would have imbrued their hands in the protestant blood of Elizabeth, and, as a sine qua non of the queen's salvation, have compelled her to bequeath the kingdom to some catholic prince. The contest might have been attended with the horrors incidental to a religious civil war, and calamities might have been felt in England similar to those under Henry the Great in France, whom queen Elizabeth assisted in opposing his priest-ridden catholic subjects. As if Providence had the perpetual establishment of the protestant faith in view, the difference of the durations of the two reigns is worthy of notice. Mary might have reigned many years in the course of nature, but the course of grace willed it otherwise. Five years and four months was the time of persecution alloted to this weak, disgraceful reign, while that of Elizabeth reckoned a number of years among the highest of those who have sat on the English throne, almost nine times that of her merciless sister!

Before Mary attained the crown, she treated her with a sisterly kindness, but from that period her conduct was altered, and the most imperious distance substituted. Though Elizabeth had no concern in the rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyat, yet she was apprehended, and treated as a culprit in that commotion. The manner too of her arrest was similar to the mind that dictated it: the three cabinet members, whom she deputed to see the arrest executed, rudely entered the chamber at ten o'clock at night, and, though she was extremely ill, they could scarcely be induced to let her remain till the following morning. Her enfeebled state permitted her to be moved only by short stages in a journey of such length to London; but the princess, though afflicted in person, had a consolation in mind which her sister never could purchase: the people, through whom she passed on her way, pitied her, and put up their prayers for her preservation. Arrived at court, she was made a close prisoner for a fortnight, without knowing who was her accuser, or seeing any one who could console or advise her. The charge however was at length unmasked by Gardiner, who, with nineteen of the council, accused her of abetting Wyat's conspiracy, which she religiously affirmed to be false. Failing in this, they placed against her the transactions of Sir Peter Carew in the west in which they were as unsuccessful as in the former. The queen now signified, it was her pleasure she should be committed to the Tower, a step which overwhelmed the princess with the greatest alarm and uneasiness. In vain she hoped the queen's majesty would not commit her to such a place; but there was no lenity to be expected; her attendants were limited, and a hundred northern soldiers appointed to guard her day and night.

On Palm-Sunday she was conducted to the Tower. When she came to the palace garden, she cast her eyes towards the windows, eagerly anxious to meet those of the queen, but she was disappointed. A strict order was given in London, that every one should go to church, and carry palms, that she might be conveyed without clamour or commiseration to her prison.

At the time of passing under London-bridge the fall of the tide made it very dangerous, and the barge some time stuck fast against the starlings. To mortify her the more, she was landed at Traitors' Stairs. As it rained fast, and she was obliged to step in the water to land, she hesitated; but this excited no complaisance in the lord in waiting. When she set her foot on the steps, she exclaimed, "Here lands as true a subject, being prisoner, as ever landed at these stairs; and before thee, O God, I speak it, having no friend but thee alone!"

A large number of the wardens and servants of the Tower were arranged in order, between whom the princess had to pass. Upon inquiring the use of this parade, she was informed it was customary to do so. "If," said she, "it is on account of me, I beseech you that they may be dismissed." On this the poor men knelt down, and prayed that God would preserve her grace, for which they were the next day turned out of their employments. The tragic scene must have been deeply interesting, to see an amiable and irreproachable princess sent like a lamb to languish in expectation of cruelty and death; against whom there was no other charge than her superiority in Christian virtues and acquired endowments. Her attendants openly wept as she proceeded with a dignified step to the frowning battlements of her destination. "Alas!" said Elizabeth, "what do you mean? I took you to comfort, not to dismay me; for my truth is such, that no one shall have cause to weep for me."

The next step of her enemies was to procure evidence by means which, in the present day, are accounted detestable. Many poor prisoners were racked, to extract, if possible, any matters of accusation which might affect her life, and thereby gratify Gardiner's sanguinary disposition. He himself came to examine her, respecting her removal from her house at Ashbridge to Dunnington castle a long while before. The princess had quite forgotten this trivial circumstance, and lord Arundel, after the investigation, kneeling down, apologized for having troubled her in such a frivolous matter. "You sift me narrowly," replied the princess, "but of this I am assured, that God has appointed a limit to your proceedings; and so God forgive you all."

Her own gentlemen, who ought to have been her purveyors, and served her provision, were compelled to give place to the common soldiers, at the command of the constable of the Tower, who was in every respect a servile tool of Gardiner,—her grace's friends, however, procured an order of council which regulated this petty tyranny more to her satisfaction.

After having been a whole month in close confinement, she sent for the lord Chamberlain and lord Chandois, to whom she represented the ill state of her health from a want of proper air and exercise. Application being made to the council, Elizabeth was with some difficulty admitted to walk in the queen's lodgings, and afterwards in the garden, at which time the prisoners on that side were attended by their keepers, and not suffered to look down upon her. Their jealousy was excited by a child of four years old, who daily brought flowers to the princess. The child was threatened with a whipping, and the father ordered to keep him from the princess' chambers.

On the 5th of May the constable was discharged from his office, and Sir Henry Benifield appointed in his room, accompanied by a hundred ruffian-looking soldiers in blue. This measure created considerable alarm in the mind of the princess, who imagined it was preparatory to her undergoing the same fate as lady Jane Gray, upon the same block. Assured that this project was not in agitation, she entertained an idea that the new keeper of the Tower was commissioned to make away with her privately, as his equivocal character was in conformity with the ferocious inclination of those by whom he was appointed.

A report now obtained that her grace was to be taken away by the new constable and his soldiers, which in the sequel proved to be true. An order of council was made for her removal to the manor of Woodstock, which took place on Trinity Sunday, May 13, under the authority of Sir Henry Benifield and Lord Tame. The ostensible cause of her removal was to make room for other prisoners. Richmond was the first place they stopped at, and here the princess slept, not however without much alarm at first, as her own servants were superseded by the soldiers, who were placed as guards at her chamber door. Upon representation, Lord Tame overruled this indecent stretch of power, and granted her perfect safety while under his custody.

In passing through Windsor, she saw several of her poor dejected servants waiting to see her. "Go to them," said she, to one of her attendants, "and say these words from me, tanquim ovis, that is, like a sheep to the slaughter."

The next night her grace lodged at the house of a Mr. Dormer, in her way to which the people manifested such tokens of loyal affection, that Sir Henry was indignant, and bestowed on them very liberally the names of rebels and traitors. In some villages they rang the bells for joy, imagining the princess's arrival among them was from a very different cause; but this harmless demonstration of gladness was sufficient with the persecuting Benefield to order his soldiers to seize and set these humble persons in the stocks.

The day following, her grace arrived at Lord Tame's house, where she staid all night, and was most nobly entertained. This excited Sir Henry's indignation, and made him caution Lord Tame to look well to his proceedings; but the humanity of Lord Tame was not to be frightened, and he returned a suitable reply. At another time, this official prodigal, to show his consequence and disregard of good manners, went up into a chamber, where was appointed for her grace a chair, two cushions, and a foot carpet, wherein he presumptuously sat and called his man to pull off his boots. As soon as it was known to the ladies and gentlemen, they laughed him to scorn. When supper was done, he called to his lordship, and directed that all gentlemen and ladies should withdraw home, marvelling much that he would permit such a large company, considering the great charge he had committed to him. "Sir Henry," said his lordship, "content yourself; all shall be avoided, your men and all." "Nay, but my soldiers," replied Sir Henry, "shall watch all night." Lord Tame answered, "There is no need." "Well," said he, "need or need not, they shall so do."

The next day her grace took her journey from thence to Woodstock, where she was enclosed, as before in the Tower of London, the soldiers keeping guard within and without the walls, every day, to the number of sixty; and in the night, without the walls were forty during all the time of her imprisonment.

At length she was permitted to walk in the gardens, but under the most severe restrictions, Sir Henry keeping the keys himself, and placing her always under many bolts and locks, whence she was induced to call him her jailer, at which he felt offended, and begged her to substitute the word officer. After much earnest entreaty to the council, she obtained permission to write to the queen; but the jailer, who brought her pen, ink, and paper stood by her while she wrote, and, when she left off, he carried the things away till they were wanted again. He also insisted upon carrying it himself to the queen, but Elizabeth would not suffer him to be the bearer, and it was presented by one of her gentlemen.

After the letter, doctors Owen and Wendy went to the princess, as the state of her health rendered medical assistance necessary. They staid with her five or six days, in which time she grew much better; they then returned to the queen, and spoke flatteringly of the princess' submission and humility, at which the queen seemed moved; but the bishops wanted a concession that she had offended her majesty. Elizabeth spurned this indirect mode of acknowledging herself guilty. "If I have offended," said she, "and am guilty, I crave no mercy but the law, which I am certain I should have had ere this, if any thing could have been proved against me. I wish I were as clear from the peril of my enemies; then should I not be thus bolted and locked up within walls and doors."

Much question arose at this time respecting the propriety of uniting the princess to some foreigner, that she might quit the realm with a suitable portion. One of the council had the brutality to urge the necessity of beheading her, if the king (Philip) meant to keep the realm in peace; but the Spaniards, detesting such a base thought, replied, "God forbid that our king and master should consent to such an infamous proceeding!" Stimulated by a noble principle, the Spaniards from this time repeatedly urged to the king that it would do him the highest honour to liberate the lady Elizabeth, nor was the king impervious to their solicitation. He took her out of prison, and shortly after she was sent for to Hampton court. It may be remarked in this place, that the fallacy of human reasoning is shown in every moment. The barbarian who suggested the policy of beheading Elizabeth little contemplated the change of condition which his speech would bring about. In her journey from Woodstock, Benefield treated her with the same severity as before; removing her on a stormy day, and not suffering her old servant, who had come to Colnbrook, where she slept, to speak to her.

She remained a fortnight strictly guarded and watched, before any one dared to speak with her; at length the vile Gardiner with three more of the council, came with great submission. Elizabeth saluted them, remarked that she had been for a long time kept in solitary confinement, and begged they would intercede with the king and queen to deliver her from prison. Gardiner's visit was to draw from the princess a confession of her guilt; but she was guarded against his subtlety, adding, that, rather than admit she had done wrong, she would lie in prison all the rest of her life. The next day Gardiner came again, and kneeling down, declared that the queen was astonished she should persist in affirming that she was blameless—whence it would be inferred that the queen had unjustly imprisoned her grace. Gardiner farther informed her that the queen had declared that she must tell another tale, before she could be set at liberty. "Then," replied the high-minded Elizabeth, "I had rather be in prison with honesty and truth, than have my liberty, and be suspected by her majesty. What I have said, I will stand to; nor will I ever speak falsehood!" The bishop and his friends then departed, leaving her locked up as before.

Seven days after the queen sent for Elizabeth at ten o'clock at night, two years had elapsed since they had seen each other. It created terror in the mind of the princess, who, at setting out, desired her gentlemen and ladies to pray for her, as her return to them again was uncertain.

Being conducted to the queen's bedchamber, upon entering it the princess knelt down, and having begged of God to preserve her majesty, she humbly assured her that her majesty had not a more loyal subject in the realm, whatever reports might be circulated to the contrary. With a haughty ungraciousness, the imperious queen replied, "You will not confess your offence, but stand stoutly to your truth. I pray God it may so fall out."

"If it do not," said Elizabeth, "I request neither favour nor pardon at your majesty's hands." "Well," said the queen, "you stiffly still persevere in your truth. Besides, you will not confess that you have not been wrongfully punished."

"I must not say so, if it please your majesty, to you."

"Why, then," said the queen, "belike you will to others."

"No, if it please your majesty: I have borne the burden, and must bear it. I humbly beseech your majesty to have a good opinion of me and to think me to be your subject, not only from the beginning hitherto, but for ever, as long as life lasteth." They departed without any heart-felt satisfaction on either side; nor can we think the conduct of Elizabeth displayed that independence and fortitude which accompanies perfect innocence. Elizabeth's admitting that she would not say neither to the queen nor to others, that she had been unjustly punished, was in direct contradiction to what she had told Gardiner, and must have arisen from some motive at this time inexplicable.—King Philip is supposed to have been secretly concealed during the interview, and to have been friendly to the princess.

In seven days from the time of her return to imprisonment, her severe jailer, and his men were discharged, and she was set at liberty, under the constraint of being always attended and watched by some of the queen's council. Four of her gentlemen were sent to the Tower without any other charge against them than being zealous servants of their mistress. This event was soon after followed by the happy news of Gardiner's death, for which all good and merciful men glorified God, inasmuch as it had taken the chief tiger from the den, and rendered the life of the protestant successor of Mary more secure.

This miscreant, while the princess was in the Tower, sent a secret writ, signed by a few of the council, for her private execution, and, had Mr. Bridges, lieutenant of the Tower, been as little scrupulous of dark assassination as this pious prelate was, she must have perished. The warrant not having the queen's signature, Mr. Bridges hastened to her majesty, to give her information of it, and to know her mind. This was a plot of Winchester's, who, to convict her of treasonable practices, caused several prisoners to be racked; particularly Mr. Edmund Tremaine and Smithwicke were offered considerable bribes to accuse the guiltless princess.

Her life was several times in danger. While at Woodstock, fire was apparently put between the boards and ceiling under which she lay. It was also reported strongly, that one Paul Penny, the keeper of Woodstock, a notorious ruffian was appointed to assassinate her, but, however this might be, God counteracted in this point the nefarious designs of the enemies of the reformation. James Basset was another appointed to perform the same deed: he was a peculiar favourite of Gardiner, and had come within a mile of Woodstock, intending to speak with Benefield on the subject. The goodness of God however so ordered it, that while Basset was travelling to Woodstock, Benefield, by an order of council, was going to London; in consequence of which, he left a positive order with his brother, that no man should be admitted to the princess during his absence, not even with a note from the queen; his brother met the murderer, but the latter's intention was frustrated, as no admission could be obtained.

When Elizabeth quitted Woodstock, she left the following lines written with her diamond on the window:—

With the life of Winchester ceased the extreme danger of the princess, as many of her other secret enemies soon after followed him, and, last of all, her cruel sister, who outlived Gardiner but three years. The death of Mary was ascribed to several causes. The council endeavoured to console her in her last moments, imagining it was the absence of her husband that lay heavy at her heart, but though his treatment had some weight, the loss of Calais, the last fortress possessed by the English in France, was the true source of her sorrow. "Open my heart," said Mary, "when I am dead, and you shall find Calais written there." Religion caused her no alarm; the priests had lulled to rest every misgiving of conscience, which might have obtruded, on account of the accusing spirits of the murdered martyrs. Not the blood she had spilled, but the loss of a town, excited her emotions in dying, and this last stroke seemed to be awarded, that her fanatical persecution might be paralleled by her political imbecility. We earnestly pray that the annals of no country, catholic or pagan, may ever be stained with such a repetition of human sacrifices to papal power, and that the detestation in which the character of Mary is holden, may be a beacon to succeeding monarchs to avoid the rocks of fanaticism!

After that arch-persecutor, Gardiner, was dead, others followed, of whom Dr. Morgan, bishop of St. David's, who succeeded bishop Farrar, is to be noticed. Not long after he was installed in his bishopric, he was stricken by the visitation of God; his food passed through the throat, but rose again with great violence. In this manner, almost literally starved to death, he terminated his existence.

Bishop Thornton, suffragan of Dover, was an indefatigable persecutor of the true church. One day after he had exercised his cruel tyranny upon a number of pious persons at Canterbury, he came from the chapter-house to Borne, where as he stood on a Sunday looking at his men playing at bowls, he fell down in a fit of the palsy, and did not long survive.

After the latter succeeded another bishop or suffragan, ordained by Gardiner, who not long after he had been raised to the see of Dover, fell down a pair of stairs in the cardinal's chamber at Greenwich, and broke his neck. He had just received the cardinal's blessing—he could receive nothing worse.

John Cooper, of Watsam, Suffolk, suffered by perjury; he was from private pique persecuted by one Fenning, who suborned two others to swear that they heard Cooper say, "If God did not take away queen Mary, the devil would." Cooper denied all such words, but Cooper was a protestant and a heretic, and therefore he was hung, drawn and quartered, his property confiscated, and his wife and nine children reduced to beggary. The following harvest, however, Grimwood of Hitcham, one of the witnesses before mentioned, was visited for his villany: while at work, stacking up corn, his bowels suddenly burst out, and before relief could be obtained he died. Thus was deliberate perjury rewarded by sudden death!

In the case of the martyr Mr. Bradford, the severity of Mr. Sheriff Woodroffe has been noticed—he rejoiced at the death of the saints, and at Mr. Rogers' execution, he broke the carman's head, because he stopped the cart to let the martyr's children take a last farewell of him. Scarcely had Mr. Woodroffe's sheriffalty expired a week, when he was struck with a paralytic affection, and languished a few days in the most pitiable and helpless condition, presenting a striking contrast to his former activity in the cause of blood.

Ralph Lardyn, who betrayed the martyr George Eagles, is believed to have been afterward arraigned and hanged in consequence of accusing himself. At the bar, he denounced himself in these words, "This has most justly fallen upon me, for betraying the innocent blood of that just and good man George Eagles, who was here condemned in the time of Queen Mary by my procurement, when I sold his blood for a little money."

As James Abbes was going to execution, and exhorting the pitying bystanders to adhere steadfastly to the truth, and like him to seal the cause of Christ with their blood, a servant of the sheriff's interrupted him, and blasphemously called his religion heresy, and the good man a lunatic. Scarcely however had the flames reached the martyr, before the fearful stroke of God fell upon this hardened wretch, in the presence of him he had so cruelly ridiculed. The man was suddenly seized with lunacy, cast off his clothes and shoes before the people, (as Abbes had done just before, to distribute among some poor persons,) at the same time exclaiming, "Thus did James Abbes, the true servant of God, who is saved but I am damned." Repeating this often, the sheriff had him secured, and made him put his clothes on, but no sooner was he alone, than he tore them off, and exclaimed as before. Being tied in a cart, he was conveyed to his master's house, and in about half a year he died; just before which a priest came to attend him, with the crucifix, &c. but the wretched man bade him take away such trumpery, and said that he and other priests had been the cause of his damnation, but that Abbes was saved.

One Clark, an avowed enemy of the protestants in king Edward's reign, hung himself in the Tower of London.

Froling, a priest of much celebrity, fell down in the street and died on the spot.

Dale, an indefatigable informer, was consumed by vermin, and died a miserable spectacle.

Alexander, the severe keeper of Newgate, died miserably, swelling to a prodigious size, and became so inwardly putrid, that none could come near him. This cruel minister of the law would go to Bonner, Story, and others, requesting them to rid his prison, he was so much pestered with heretics! The son of this keeper, in three years after his father's death, dissipated his great property, and died suddenly in Newgate market. "The sins of the father," says the decalogue, "shall be visited on the children." John Peter, son-in-law of Alexander, a horrid blasphemer and persecutor, died wretchedly. When he affirmed any thing, he would say, "If it be not true, I pray I may rot ere I die." This awful state visited him in all its loathsomeness.

Sir Ralph Ellerker was eagerly desirous to see the heart taken out of Adam Damlip, who was wrongfully put to death. Shortly after Sir Ralph was slain by the French, who mangled him dreadfully, cut off his limbs, and tore his heart out.

When Gardiner heard of the miserable end of Judge Hales, he called the profession of the gospel a doctrine of desperation; but he forgot that the judge's despondency arose after he had consented to the papistry. But with more reason may this be said of the catholic tenets, if we consider the miserable end of Dr. Pendleton, Gardiner, and most of the leading persecutors. Gardiner, upon his death bed, was reminded by a bishop of Peter denying his master. "Ah," said Gardiner, "I have denied with Peter, but never repented with Peter."

After the accession of Elizabeth, most of the Catholic prelates were imprisoned in the Tower or the fleet; Bonner was put into the Marshalsea.

Of the revilers of God's word, we detail, among many others, the following occurrence. One William Maldon, living at Greenwich in servitude, was instructing himself profitably in reading an English primer one winter's evening. A serving man, named John Powell, sat by, and ridiculed all that Maldon said, who cautioned him not to make a jest of the word of God. Powell nevertheless continued, till Maldon came to certain English Prayers, and read aloud, Lord, have mercy upon us, Christ have mercy upon us, &c. Suddenly the reviler started, and exclaimed, Lord, have mercy upon us! He was struck with the utmost terror of mind, said the evil spirit could not abide that Christ should have any mercy upon him, and sunk into madness. He was remitted to Bedlam, and became an awful warning that God will not always be insulted with impunity.

Henry Smith, a student in the law, had a pious protestant father, of Camden, in Gloucestershire, by whom he was virtuously educated. While studying law in the middle temple, he was induced to profess catholicism, and, going to Louvain, in France, he returned with pardons, crucifixes, and a great freight of popish toys. Not content with these things, he openly reviled the gospel religion he had been brought up in; but conscience one night reproached him so dreadfully, that in a fit of despair he hung himself in his garters. He was buried in a lane, without the Christian service being read over him.

Dr. Story, whose name has been so often mentioned in the preceding pages, was reserved to be cut off by public execution, a practice in which he had taken great delight when in power. He is supposed to have had a hand in most of the conflagrations in Mary's time, and was even ingenious in his invention of new modes of inflicting torture. When Elizabeth came to the throne, he was committed to prison, but unaccountably effected his escape to the continent, to carry fire and sword there among the protestant brethren. From the duke of Alva, at Antwerp, he received a special commission to search all ships for contraband goods, and particularly for English heretical books.

Dr. Story gloried in a commission that was ordered by Providence to be his ruin, and to preserve the faithful from his sanguinary cruelty. It was contrived that one Parker, a merchant, should sail to Antwerp and information should be given to Dr. Story that he had a quantity of heretical books on board. The latter no sooner heard this, than he hastened to the vessel, sought every where above, and then went under the hatches, which were fastened down upon him. A prosperous gale brought the ship to England, and this traitorous, persecuting rebel was committed to prison, where he remained a considerable time, obstinately objecting to recant his anti-christian spirit, or admit of queen Elizabeth's supremacy. He alleged, though by birth and education an Englishman, that he was a sworn subject of the king of Spain, in whose service the famous duke of Alva was. The doctor being condemned, was laid upon a hurdle, and drawn from the Tower to Tyburn, where after being suspended about half an hour, he was cut down, stripped, and the executioner displayed the heart of a traitor. Thus ended the existence of this Nimrod of England.

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CHAPTER XIV.

THE SPANISH ARMADA.

Philip, king of Spain, husband to the deceased queen Mary of England, was no less an enemy than that princess to the protestants. He had always disliked the English, and after her death, determined, if possible, to crown that infamous cruelty which had disgraced the whole progress of her reign, by making a conquest of the island, and putting every protestant to death.

The great warlike preparations made by this monarch, though the purpose was unknown, gave a universal alarm to the English nation; as, though he had not declared that intention, yet it appeared evident that he was taking measures to seize the crown of England. Pope Sixtus V. not less ambitious than himself, and equally desirous of persecuting the protestants, urged him to the enterprise. He excommunicated the queen, and published a crusade against her, with the usual indulgences. All the ports of Spain resounded with preparations for this alarming expedition; and the Spaniards seemed to threaten the English with a total annihilation.

Three whole years had been spent by Philip in making the necessary preparations for this mighty undertaking; and his fleet, which on account of its prodigious strength, was called the "Invincible Armada," was now completed. A consecrated banner was procured from the pope, and the gold of Peru was lavished on the occasion.

The duke of Parma, by command of the Spaniards, built ships in Flanders, and a great company of small broad vessels, each one able to transport thirty horses, with bridges fitted for them severally; and hired mariners from the east part of Germany, and provided long pieces of wood sharpened at the end, and covered with iron, with hooks on one side; and 20,000 vessels, with a huge number of fagots; and placed an army ready in Flanders, of 103 companies of foot and 4000 horsemen. Among these 700 English vagabonds, who were held of all others in most contempt. Neither was Stanley respected or obeyed who was set over the English; nor Westmoreland, nor any other who offered their help, but for their unfaithfulness to their own country were shut out from all consultations, and as men unanimously rejected with detestation. And because Pope Sixtus the Fifth in such a case would not be wanting, he sent Cardinal Allen into Flanders, and renewed the bulls declaratory of Pope Pius the Fifth, and Gregory the Thirteenth.

He excommunicated and deposed queen Elizabeth, absolved her subjects from all allegiance, and, as if it had been against the Turks or infidels, he set forth in print a conceit, wherein he bestowed plenary indulgences, out of the treasure of the church, besides a million of gold, or ten hundred thousand ducats, to be distributed (the one half in hand, the rest when either England, or some famous haven therein, should be won) upon all them that would join their help against England. By which means the Marquis of Bergau, of the house of Austria, the duke of Pastrana, Amadis, duke of Savoy, Vespasian, Gonzaga, John Medicis, and divers other noblemen, were drawn into these wars.

Queen Elizabeth, that she might not be surprised unawares, prepared as great a navy as she could, and with singular care and providence, made all things ready necessary for war. And she herself, who was ever most judicious in discerning of men's wits and aptness, and most happy in making choice, when she made it out of her own judgment, and not at the discretion of others, designed the best and most serviceable to each several employment. Over the whole navy she appointed the Lord Admiral Charles Howard, in whom she reposed much trust; and sent him to the west part of England, where Captain Drake, whom she made vice-admiral, joined with him. She commanded Henry Seimor, the second son to the duke of Somerset, to watch upon the Belgic shore, with forty English and Dutch ships, that the duke of Parma might not come out with his forces; although some were of opinion, that the enemy was to be expected and set upon by land forces, accordingly as it was upon deliberation resolved, in the time of Henry the Eighth, when the French brought a great navy on the English shore.

For the land fight, there were placed on the south shore twenty thousand; and two armies beside were mustered of the choicest men for war. The one of these, which consisted of 1000 horse and twenty two thousand foot was commanded by the earl of Leicester, and encamped at Tilbury, on the side of the Thames. For the enemy was resolved first to set upon London. The other army was commanded by the Lord Hunsdon, consisting of thirty-four thousand foot, and two thousand horse, to guard the queen.

The Lord Gray, Sir Francis Knowles, Sir John Norris, Sir Richard Bingham, Sir Roger Williams, men famously known for military experience, were chosen to confer of the land-fight. These commanders thought fit that all those places should be fortified, with men and ammunition, which were commodious to land in, either out of Spain or out of Flanders, as Milford-Haven, Falmouth, Plymouth, Portland, the Isle of Wight, Portsmouth, the open side of Kent, called the Downs, the Thames' mouth, Harwich, Yarmouth, Hull, &c. That trained soldiers through all the maratime provinces should meet upon warning given, to defend the places; that they should by their best means, hinder the enemy from landing; and if they did happen to land, then they were to destroy the fruits of the country all about, and spoil every thing that might be of any use to the enemy, that so they might find no more victuals than what they brought with them. And that, by continued alarms, the enemy should find no rest day or night. But they should not try any battle until divers captains were met together with their companies. That one captain might be named in every shire which might command.

Two years before, the duke of Parma, considering how hard a matter it was to end the Belgic war, so long as it was continually nourished and supported with aid from the queen, he moved for a treaty of peace, by the means of Sir James Croft, one of the privy council, a man desirous of peace, and Andrew Loe, a Dutchman, and professed that the Spaniard had delegated authority to him for this purpose. But the queen fearing that the friendship between her and the confederate princes might be dissolved, and that so they might secretly be drawn to the Spaniard, she deferred that treaty for some time. But now, that the wars on both sides prepared might be turned away, she was content to treat for peace; but so as still holding the weapons in her hand.

For this purpose, in February, delegates were sent into Flanders, the earl of Derby, the lord Cobham, Sir James Croft, Dr. Dale, and Dr. Rogers. These were received with all humanity on the duke's behalf, and a place appointed for their treating, that they might see the authority delegated to him by the Spanish king. He appointed the place near to Ostend, not in Ostend, which at that time was held by the English against the Spanish king. His authority delegated, he promised them to show, when they were once met together. He wished them to make good speed in the business, lest somewhat might fall out in the mean time, which might trouble the motions of peace. Richardotus, spoke somewhat more plainly, That he knew not what in this interim should be done against England.

Not long after, Dr. Rogers was sent to the prince, by an express commandment from the queen, to know the truth, whether the Spaniards had resolved to invade England, which he and Richardotus seemed to signify. He affirmed, that he did not so much as think of the invasion of England, when he wished that the business might proceed with speed; and was in a manner offended with Richardotus, who denied that such words fell from him.

The 12th of April, the count Aremberg, Champigny, Richardotus, Doctor Maesius, and Garnier, delegated from the prince of Parma, met with the English, and yielded to them the honour both in walking and sitting.

This conference, however, came to nothing; undertaken by, the queen, as the wiser then thought, to avert the Spanish fleet; continued by the Spaniard that he might oppress the queen, being as he supposed unprovided, and not expecting the danger. So both of them tried to use time to their best advantages.

At length the Spanish fleet, well furnished with men, ammunition, engines, and all warlike preparations, the best, indeed, that ever was seen upon the ocean, called by the arrogant title, The Invincible Armada, consisted of 130 ships, wherein there were in all, 19,290. Mariners, 8,350. Chained rowers, 11,080. Great ordnance, 11,630. The chief commander was Perezius Guzmannus, duke of Medina Sidonia; and under him Joannes Martinus Ricaldus, a man of great experience in sea affairs.

The 30th of May they loosed out of the river Tagus, and bending their course to the Groin, in Gallicia, they were beaten and scattered by a tempest, three galleys, by the help of David Gwin, an English servant, and by the perfidiousness of the Turks which rowed, were carried away into France. The fleet, with much ado, after some days came to the Groin, and other harbours near adjoining. The report was, that the fleet was so shaken by this tempest, that the queen was persuaded, that she was not to expect that fleet this year. And Sir Francis Walsingham, sec'y, wrote to the lord admiral, that he might send back four of the greatest ships, as if the war had been ended. But the lord admiral did not easily give credit to that report; yet with a gentle answer entreated him to believe nothing hastily in so important a matter: as also that he might be permitted to keep those ships with him which he had, though it were upon his own charges. And getting a favourable wind, made sail towards Spain, to surprise the enemy's damaged ships in their harbours. When he was close in with the coast of Spain, the wind shifting, and he being charged to defend the English shore, fearing that the enemy might unseen, by the same wind, sail for England, he returned unto Plymouth.

Now with the same wind, the 12th of July, the duke of Medina with his fleet departed from the Groin. And after a few days he sent Rodericus Telius into Flanders, to advertise the duke of Parma, giving him warning that the fleet was approaching, and therefore he was to make himself ready. For Medina's commission was to join himself with the ships and soldiers of Parma; and under the protection of his fleet to bring them into England, and to land his forces upon the Thames side.

The sixteenth, day, (saith the relator,) there was a great calm, and a thick cloud was upon the sea till noon; then the north wind blowing roughly; and again the west wind till midnight, and after that the east; the Spanish navy was scattered, and hardly gathered together until they came within sight of England the nineteenth day of July. Upon which day, the lord admiral was certified by Fleming, (who had been a pirate) that the Spanish fleet was entered into the English sea, which the mariners call the Channel, and was descried near to the Lizard. The lord admiral brought forth the English fleet into the sea, but not without great difficulty, by the skill, labour, and alacrity of the soldiers and mariners, every one labouring; yea, the lord admiral himself putting his hand to this work.

The next day the English fleet viewed the Spanish fleet coming along like the towering castles in height, her front crooked like the fashion of the moon, the wings of the fleet were extended one from the other about seven miles, or as some say eight miles asunder, sailing with the labour of the winds, the ocean as it were groaning under it, their sail was but slow, and yet at full sail before the wind. The English were willing to let them hold on their course, and when they were passed by, got behind them, and so got to windward of them.

Upon the 21st of July, the lord admiral of England sent a cutter before, called the Defiance, to denounce the battle by firing off pieces. And being himself in the Royal-Arch, (the English admiral ship) he began the engagement with a ship which he took to be the Spanish admiral, but which was the ship of Alfonsus Leva. Upon that he expended much shot. Presently Drake, Hawkins, and Forbisher, came in upon the rear of the Spaniards which Ricaldus commanded.—Upon these they thundered. Ricaldus endeavoured, as much as in him lay, to keep his men to their quarters, but all in vain, until his ship, much beaten and battered with many shot, hardly recovered the fleet. Then the duke of Medina gathered together his scattered fleet, and setting more sail, held on his course. Indeed they could do no other, for the English had gotten the advantage of the wind, and their ships being much easier managed, and ready with incredible celerity to come upon the enemy with a full course, and then to tack and retack and be on every side at their pleasure. After a long fight, and each of them had taken a trial of their courage, the lord admiral thought proper to continue the fight no longer, because there were forty ships more, which were then absent, and at that very time were coming out of Plymouth Sound.

The night following, the St. Catharine, a Spanish ship, being sadly torn in the battle, was taken into the midst of the fleet to be repaired. Here a great Cantabrian ship, of Oquenda, wherein was the treasurer of the camp, by force of gunpowder took fire, yet it was quenched in time by the ships that came to help her. Of those which came to assist the fired ship, one was a galleon, commanded by one Petrus Waldez; the fore-yard of the galleon was caught in the rigging of another ship, and carried away. This was taken by Drake, who sent Waldez to Dartmouth, and a great sum of money, viz. 55,000 ducats, which he distributed among the soldiers. This Waldez coming into Drake's presence, kissed his hand, and told him they had all resolved to die, if they had not been so happy as to fall into his hands whom they knew to be noble. That night he was appointed to set forth a light, but neglected it; and some German merchant ships coming by that night, he, thinking them to be enemies, followed them so far, that the English fleet lay to all night, because they could see no light set forth. Neither did he nor the rest of the fleet find the admiral until the next evening. The admiral all the night proceeding with the Bear and the Mary Rose, carefully followed the Spaniards with watchfulness. The duke was busied in ordering his squadron. Alfonsus Leva was commanded to join the first and last divisions. Every ship had its proper station assigned, according to that prescribed form which was appointed in Spain; it was present death to any one who forsook his station. This done, he sent Gliclius and Anceani to Parma, which might declare to them in what situation they were, and left that Cantabrian ship, of Oquenda, to the wind and sea, having taken out the money and mariners, and put them on board of other ships. Yet it seemed that he had not care for all; for that ship the same day, with fifty mariners and soldiers wounded and half-burned, fell into the hands of the English, and was carried to Weymouth.

The 23d of the same month, the Spaniards having a favourable north wind, tacked towards the English; but they being more expert in the management of their ships, tacked likewise, and kept the advantage they had gained, keeping the Spaniards to leeward, till at last the fight became general on both sides. They fought awhile confusedly with variable success: whilst on the one side the English with great courage delivered the London ships which were enclosed about by the Spaniards; and on the other side, the Spaniards by valour freed Ricaldus from the extreme danger he was in; great and many were the explosions, which, by the continued firing of great guns, were heard this day. But the loss (by the good providence of God,) fell upon the Spaniards, their ships being so high, that the shot went over our English ships, and the English, having such a fair mark at their large ships, never shot in vain. During this engagement, Cock, an Englishman, being surrounded by the Spanish ships, could not be recovered, but perished; however, with great honour he revenged himself. Thus a long time the English ships with great agility were sometimes upon the Spaniards, giving them the fire of one side, and then of the other, and presently were off again, and still kept the sea, to make themselves ready to come in again. Whereas the Spanish ships, being of great burden, were troubled and hindered, and stood to be the marks for the English shot. For all that the English admiral would not permit his people to board their ships, because they had such a number of soldiers on board, which he had not; their ships were many in number, and greater, and higher, that if they had come to grapple, as many would have had it, the English being much lower than the Spanish ships, must needs have had the worst of them that fought from the higher ships. And if the English had been overcome, the loss would have been greater than the victory could have been; for our being overcome would have put the kingdom in hazard.

The 24th day of July they gave over fighting on both sides. The admiral sent some small barks to the English shore for a supply of provisions, and divided his whole fleet into four squadrons; the first whereof he took under his own command, the next was commanded by Drake, the third by Hawkins, and the last by Forbisher. And he appointed out of every squadron certain little ships, which, on divers sides might set upon the Spaniards in the night, but a sudden calm took them so that expedition was without effect.

The 25th, the St. Anne, a galleon of Portugal, not being able to keep up with the rest, was attacked by some small English ships. To whose aid came in Leva, and Didacus Telles Enriques, with three galeasses; which the admiral, and the Lord Thomas Howard, espying, made all the sail they could against the galeasses, but the calm continuing, they were obliged to be towed along with their boats; as soon as they reached the galeasses, they began to play away so fiercely with their great guns, that with much danger, and great loss, they hardly recovered their galleon. The Spaniards reported that the Spanish admiral was that day in the rear of their fleet, which, being come nearer to the English ships than before, got terribly shattered with their great guns, many men were killed aboard, and her masts laid over the side. The Spanish admiral, after this, in company with Ricaldus, and others, attacked the English admiral, who, having the advantage of the wind, suddenly tacked and escaped. The Spaniards holding on their course again, sent to the duke of Parma, that with all possible speed he should join his ships with the king's fleet. These things the English knew not, who write that they had carried away the lantern from one of the Spanish ships, the stern from another, and sore mauled the third very much disabling her. The Non-Parigly, and the Mary Rose, fought awhile with the Spaniards, and the Triumph being in danger, other ships came in good time to help her.

The next day the lord admiral knighted the Lord Thomas Howard, the Lord Sheffield, Roger Townsend, John Hawkins, and Martin Forbisher, for their valour in the last engagement. After this, they agreed not to attack the enemy until they came into the straits of Calais, where Henry Seimor, and William Winter, waited for their coming. Thus with a fair gale the Spanish fleet went forward, and the English followed. This great Spanish Armada was so far from being esteemed invincible in the opinion of the English, that many young men and gentlemen, in hope to be partakers of a famous victory against the Spaniards, provided ships at their own expense, and joined themselves to the English fleet; among whom were the earls of Essex, Northumberland, and Cumberland, Thomas and Robert Cecil, Henry Brooks, William Hatton, Robert Cary, Ambrose Willoughby, Thomas Gerard, Arthur George, and other gentlemen of good note and quality.

The 27th day, at even, the Spaniards cast anchor near to Calais, being admonished by their skilful seamen, that if they went any further they might be in danger, through the force of the tide, to be driven into the North Ocean. Near to them lay the English admiral with his fleet, within a great gun's shot. The admiral, Seimor and Winter, now join their ships; so that now there were a hundred and forty ships in the English fleet, able, and well furnished for fighting, for sailing, and every thing else which was requisite; and yet there were but fifteen of these which bore the heat of the battle, and repulsed the enemy. The Spaniard, as often as he had done before, so now with great earnestness sent to the duke of Parma, to send forty fly-boats, without which they could not fight with the English, because of the greatness and slowness of their ships, and the agility of the English, entreating him by all means now to come to sea with his army, which army was now to be protected as it were, under the wings of the Spanish Armada, until they should land in England.

But the duke was unprovided, and could not come out in an instant. The broad ships with flat bottoms being then full of chinks must be mended. Victuals wanted, and must be provided. The mariners being long kept against their wills, began to shrink away. The ports of Dunkirk and Newport, by which he must bring his army to the sea, were now so beset with the strong ships of Holland and Zealand, which were furnished with great and small munition, that he was not able to come to sea, unless he would come upon his own apparent destruction, and cast himself and his men wilfully into a headlong danger. Yet he omitted nothing that might be done, being a man eager and industrious, and inflamed with a desire of overcoming England.

But queen Elizabeth's providence and care prevented both the diligence of this man, and the credulous hope of the Spaniard; for by her command the next day the admiral took eight of their worst ships, charging the ordnance therein up to the mouth with small shot, nails, and stones, and dressed them with wild fire, pitch, and rosin, and filling them full of brimstone, and some other matter fit for fire, and these being set on fire by the management of Young and Prowse, were secretly in the night, by the help of the wind, set full upon the Spanish fleet, which, on Sunday, the seventh of August, they sent in among them as they lay at anchor.

When the Spanish saw them come near, the flames giving light all over the sea, they supposing those ships, besides the danger of fire, to have been also furnished with deadly engines, to make horrible destruction among them; lifting up a most hideous cry, some pull up anchors, some for haste cut their cables, they set up their sails, they apply their oars, and stricken with extreme terror, in great haste they fled most confusedly. Among them the Pretorian Galleass floating upon the seas, her rudder being broken, in great danger and fear drew towards Calais, and striking in the sand, was taken by Amias Preston, Thomas Gerard, and Harvey; Hugh Moncada the governor was slain, the soldiers and mariners were either killed or drowned; in her there was found great store of gold, which fell to be the prey of the English. The ship and ordnance went to the governor of Calais.

The Spaniards report, that the duke, when he saw the fire ships coming, commanded all the fleet to heave up their anchors, but so as the danger being past, every ship might return again to his own station; and he himself returned, giving a sign to the rest by shooting off a gun; which was heard but by a few, for they were far off scattered some into the open ocean, some through fear were driven upon the shallows of the coast of Flanders.

Over against Gravelling the Spanish fleet began to gather themselves together. But upon them came Drake and Fenner, and battered them with great ordnance: to these Fenton, Southwel, Beeston, Cross, Riman, and presently after the lord admiral, and Sheffield, came in. The Duke Medina, Leva, Oquenda, Ricaldus, and others, with much ado in getting themselves out of the shallows, sustained the English ships as well as they might, until most of their ships were pierced and torn; the galleon St. Matthew, governed by Diego Pimentellas, coming to aid Francis Toleton, being in the St. Philip, was pierced and shaken with the reiterated shots of Seimor and Winter, and driven to Ostend, and was at last taken by the Flushingers. The St. Philip came to the like end; so did the galleon of Biscay, and divers others.

The last day of this month, the Spanish fleet striving to recover the straits again, were driven towards Zealand. The English left off pursuing them, as the Spaniards thought, because they saw them in a manner cast away; for they could not avoid the shallows of Zealand. But the wind turning, they got them out of the shallows, and then began to consult what were best for them to do. By common consent they resolved to return into Spain by the Northern Seas, for they wanted many necessaries, especially shot; their ships were torn, and they had no hope that the duke of Parma could bring forth his forces. And so they took the sea, and followed the course toward the north. The English navy followed, and sometimes the Spanish turned upon the English, insomuch that it was thought by many that they would turn back again.

Queen Elizabeth caused an army to encamp at Tilbury. After the army had come thither, her majesty went in person to visit the camp, which then lay between the city of London and the sea, under the charge of the earl of Leicester, where placing herself between the enemy and her city, she viewed her army, passing through it divers times, and lodging in the borders of it, returned again and dined in the army. Afterwards when they were all reduced into battle, prepared as it were for fight, she rode round about with a leader's staff in her hand, only accompanied with the general, and three or four others attending upon her.[A]

I could enlarge the description hereof with many more particulars of mine own observation, (says the author,) for I wandered, as many others did, from place to place, all the day, and never heard a word spoke of her, but in praising her for her stately person and princely behaviour, in praying for her long life, and earnestly desiring to venture their lives for her safety. In her presence they sung psalms of praise to Almighty God, for which she greatly commended them, and devoutly praised God with them. This that I write, you may be sure I do not with any comfort, but to give you these manifest arguments that neither this queen did discontent her people, nor her people show any discontent in any thing they were commanded to do for her service, as heretofore hath been imagined.

This account was related by a popish spy, in a letter written here in England to Mendea. The copy of which letter was found upon Richard Leigh, a seminary priest in French and English: which priest was executed for high treason while the Spanish Armada was at sea.

The same day whereon the last fight was, the duke of Parma, after his vows offered to the lady of Halla, came somewhat late to Dunkirk, and was received with very opprobrious language by the Spaniards, as if in favour of queen Elizabeth he had slipped the fairest opportunity that could be to do the service. He, to make some satisfaction, punished the purveyors that had not made provision of beer, bread, &c. which was not yet ready nor embarked, secretly smiling at the insolence of the Spaniards, when he heard them bragging that what way soever they came upon England, they would have an undoubted victory; that the English were not able to endure the sight of them. The English admiral appointed Seimor and the Hollanders to watch upon the coast of Flanders that the duke of Parma should not come out; whilst he himself close followed the Spaniards until they were past Edinburgh Frith.

The Spaniards, seeing all hopes fail, fled amain; and so this great navy, being three years preparing with great expense, was within one month overthrown, and, after many were killed, being chased again, was driven about all England, by Scotland, the Oreades, and Ireland, tossed and damaged with tempests, much diminished, and went home without glory. There were not a hundred men of the English lost, and but one ship. Whereupon money was coined with a navy fleeing away in full sail, with this inscription, Venit, Vidit, Fugit. Others were coined with the ships on fire, the navy confounded, inscribed, in honour of the queen, Dux Fæmina Facti. As they fled, it is certain that many of their ships were cast away upon the shores of Scotland and Ireland. About seven hundred soldiers and mariners were cast away upon the Scottish shore, who, at the duke of Parma's intercession with the Scotch king, the queen of England consenting, were after a year sent into Flanders. But they that were cast upon the Irish shore came to more miserable fortunes, for some were killed by the wild Irish, and others were destroyed for fear they should join themselves with the wild Irish, (which cruelty queen Elizabeth much condemned,) and the rest being afraid, sick and hungry, with their disabled ships, committed themselves to the sea, and many were drowned.

The queen went to public thanksgiving in St. Paul's church, accompanied by a glorious train of nobility, through the streets of London, which were hung with blue cloth, the companies standing on both sides in their liveries; the banners that were taken from the enemies were spread; she heard the sermon, and public thanks were rendered unto God with great joy. This public joy was augmented when Sir Robert Sidney returned from Scotland, and brought from the king assurances of his noble mind and affection to the queen, and to religion; which as in sincerity he had established, so he purposed to maintain with all his power. Sir Robert Sidney was sent to him when the Spanish fleet was coming, to congratulate and return thanks for his great affection towards the maintenance of the common cause, and to declare how ready she would be to help him if the Spaniards should land in Scotland; and that he might recal to memory with what strange ambition the Spaniards had gaped for all Britain, urging the pope to excommunicate him, to the end that he might be thrust from the kingdom of Scotland, and from the succession in England: and to give him notice of the threatening of Mendoza, and the pope's nuncio, who threatened his ruin if they could effect it: and therefore warned him to take special heed to the Scottish papists.

The king pleasantly answered that he looked for no other benefit from the Spaniards, than that which Polyphemus promised to Ulysses, to devour him last after his fellows were devoured.

It may not be improper here to subjoin a list of the different articles taken on board the Spanish ships, designed for the tormenting of the protestants, had their scheme taken effect.

1. The common soldiers' pikes, eighteen feet long, pointed with long sharp spikes, and shod with iron, which were designed to keep off the horse, to facilitate the landing of the infantry.

2. A great number of lances used by the Spanish officers. These were formerly gilt, but the gold is almost worn off by cleaning.

3. The Spanish ranceurs, made in different forms, which were intended either to kill the men on horseback, or pull them off their horses.

4. A very singular piece of arms, being a pistol in a shield, so contrived as to fire the pistol, and cover the body at the same time, with the shield. It is to be fired by a match-lock, and the sight of the enemy is to be taken through a little grate in the shield, which is pistol proof.

5. The banner, with a crucifix upon it, which was to have been carried before the Spanish general. On it is engraved the pope's benediction before the Spanish fleet sailed: for the pope came to the water side, and, on seeing the fleet, blessed it, and styled it invincible.

6. The Spanish cravats, as they are called. These are engines of torture, made of iron, and put on board to lock together the feet, arms and heads of Englishmen.

7. Spanish bilboes, made of iron likewise, to yoke the English prisoners two and two.

8. Spanish shot, which are of four sorts: pike-shot, star-shot, chain-shot, and link-shot, all admirably contrived, as well for the destruction of the masts and rigging of ships, as for sweeping the decks of their men.

9. Spanish spadas poisoned at the points, so that if a man received the slightest wound with one of them, certain death was the consequence.

10. A Spanish poll-axe, used in boarding of ships.

11. Thumb-screws, of which there were several chests full on board the Spanish fleet. The use they were intended for is said to have been to extort confession from the English where their money was hid.

12. The Spanish morning star; a destructive engine resembling the figure of a star, of which there were many thousands on board, and all of them with poisoned points; and were designed to strike at the enemy as they came on board, in case of a close attack.

13. The Spanish general's halberd, covered with velvet. All the nails of this weapon are double gilt with gold; and on its top is the pope's head, curiously engraved.

14. A Spanish battle-axe, so contrived, as to strike four holes in a man's head at once; and has besides a pistol in its handle, with a match-lock.

15. The Spanish general's shield, carried before him as an ensign of honour. On it are depicted, in most curious workmanship, the labours of Hercules, and other expressive allegories.

When the Spanish prisoners were asked by some of the English what their intentions were, had their expedition succeeded, they replied, "To extirpate the whole from the island, at least all heretics (as they called the protestants,) and to send their souls to hell." Strange infatuation! Ridiculous bigotry! How prejudiced must the minds of those men be, who would wish to destroy their fellow-creatures, not only in this world, but, if it were possible, in that which is to come, merely because they refused to believe on certain subjects as the Spaniards themselves did.

The papists (of which there were great numbers in England at the time of the intended Spanish invasion) were so irritated at the failure of that expedition, that they were determined, if possible, to project a scheme at home, that might answer the purposes, to some degree, of their blood-thirsty competitors. The vigorous administration of Elizabeth, however, prevented their carrying any of their iniquitous designs into execution, although they made many attempts with that view. The commencement of the reign of her successor was destined to be the era of a plot, the barbarity of which transcends every thing related in ancient or modern history.

In order to crush popery in the most effectual manner in this kingdom, James soon after his succession, took proper measures for eclipsing the power of the Roman Catholics, by enforcing those laws which had been made against them by his predecessors. This enraged the papists to such a degree, that a conspiracy was formed, by some of the principal leaders, of the most daring and impious nature; namely, to blow up the king, royal family, and both houses of parliament, while in full session, and thus to involve the nation in utter and inevitable ruin.

The cabal who formed the resolution of putting in practice this horrid scheme, consisted of the following persons:—Henry Garnet, an Englishman, who, about the year 1586, had been sent to England as superior of the English Jesuits; Catesby, an English gentleman; Tesmond, a Jesuit; Thomas Wright; two gentlemen of the name of Winter; Thomas Percy, a near relation of the earl of Northumberland; Guido Fawkes, a bold and enterprising soldier of fortune; Sir Edward Digby; John Grant, Esq.; Francis Tresham, Esq.; Robert Keyes and Thomas Bates, gentlemen.

Most of these were men both of birth and fortune; and Catesby, who had a large estate, had already expended two thousand pounds in several voyages to the court of Spain, in order to introduce an army of Spaniards into England, for overturning the protestant government, and restoring the Roman Catholic religion; but, being disappointed in this project of an invasion, he took an opportunity of disclosing to Percy (who was his intimate friend, and who, in a sudden fit of passion, had hinted a design of assassinating the king) a nobler and more extensive plan of treason, such as would include a sure execution of vengeance, and, at one blow, consign over to destruction all their enemies.

Percy assented to the project proposed by Catesby, and they resolved to impart the matter to a few more, and, by degrees, to all the rest of their cabal, every man being bound by an oath, and taking the sacrament (the most sacred rite of their religion), not to disclose the least syllable of the matter, or to withdraw from the association, without the consent of all persons concerned.

These consultations were held in the spring and summer of the year 1604, and it was towards the close of that year that they began their operations; the manner of which, and the discovery, we shall relate with as much brevity as is consistent with perspicuity.

It had been agreed that a few of the conspirators should run a mine below the hall in which the parliament was to assemble, and that they should choose the very moment when the king should deliver his speech to both houses, for springing the mine, and thus, by one blow cut off the king, the royal family, lords, commons, and all the other enemies of the catholic religion in that very spot where that religion has been most oppressed. For this purpose, Percy, who was at that time a gentleman-pensioner undertook to hire a house adjoining to the upper house of parliament with all diligence. This was accordingly done, and the conspirators expecting the parliament would meet on the 17th of February following, began, on the 11th of December, to dig in the cellar, through the wall of partition, which was three yards thick. There was seven in number joined in this labour: they went in by night, and never after appeared in sight, for, having supplied themselves with all necessary provisions, they had no occasion to go out. In case of discovery, they had provided themselves with powder, shot, and fire arms, and formed a resolution rather to die than be taken.

On Candlemas-day, 1605, they had dug so far through the wall as to be able to hear a noise on the other side: upon which unexpected event, fearing a discovery, Guido Fawkes, (who personated Percy's footman,) was despatched to know the occasion, and returned with the favourable report, that the place from whence the noise came was a large cellar under the upper house of parliament, full of sea-coal which was then on sale, and the cellar offered to be let.

On this information, Percy immediately hired the cellar, and bought the remainder of the coals: he then sent for thirty barrels of gunpowder from Holland, and landing them at Lambeth, conveyed them gradually by night to this cellar, where they were covered with stones, iron bars, a thousand billets, and five hundred fagots; all which they did at their leisure, the parliament being prorogued to the 5th of November.

This being done, the conspirators next consulted how they should secure the duke of York,[B] who was too young to be expected at the parliament house, and his sister, the Princess Elizabeth, educated at Lord Harrington's, in Warwickshire. It was resolved, that Percy and another should enter into the duke's chamber, and a dozen more, properly disposed at several doors, with two or three on horseback at the court-gate to receive him, should carry him safe away as soon as the parliament-house was blown up; or, if that could not be effected, that they should kill him, and declare the princess Elizabeth queen, having secured her, under pretence of a hunting-match, that day.

Several of the conspirators proposed obtaining foreign aid previous to the execution of their design; but this was over-ruled, and it was agreed only to apply to France, Spain, and other powers for assistance after the plot had taken effect; they also resolved to proclaim the princess Elizabeth queen, and to spread a report, after the blow was given, that the puritans were the perpetrators of so inhuman an action.

All matters being now prepared by the conspirators, they, without the least remorse of conscience, and with the utmost impatience, expected the 5th of November. But all their counsels were blasted by a happy and providential circumstance. One of the conspirators, having a desire to save William Parker, Lord Monteagle, sent him the following letter:

The Lord Monteagle was, for some time, at a loss what judgment to form of this letter, and unresolved whether he should slight the advertisement or not; and fancying it a trick of his enemies to frighten him into an absence from parliament, would have determined on the former, had his own safety been only in question: but apprehending the king's life might be in danger, he took the letter at midnight to the earl of Salisbury, who was equally puzzled about the meaning of it; and though he was inclined to think it merely a wild and waggish contrivance to alarm Monteagle, yet he thought proper to consult about it with the earl of Suffolk, lord chamberlain. The expression, "that the blow should come, without knowing who hurt them," made them imagine that it would not be more proper than the time of parliament, nor by any other way likely to be attempted than by gunpowder, while the king was sitting to that assembly: the lord chamberlain thought this the more probable, because there was a great cellar under the parliament-chamber, (as already mentioned,) never used for any thing but wood or coal, belonging to Wineyard, the keeper of the palace; and having communicated the letter to the earls of Nottingham, Worcester, and Northampton, they proceeded no farther till the king came from Royston, on the 1st of November.

His majesty being shown the letter by the earls, who, at the same time acquainted him with their suspicions, was of opinion that either nothing should be done, or else enough to prevent the danger: and that a search should be made on the day preceding that designed for this execution of the diabolical enterprise.

Accordingly, on Monday, the 4th of November, in the afternoon, the lord chamberlain, whose office it was to see all things put in readiness for the king's coming, accompanied by Monteagle, went to visit all places about the parliament-house, and taking a slight occasion to see the cellar, observed only piles of billets and fagots, but in greater number than he thought Wineyard could want for his own use. On his asking who owned the wood, and being told it belonged to one Mr. Percy, he began to have some suspicions, knowing him to be a rigid papist, and so seldom there, that he had no occasion for such a quantity of fuel; and Monteagle confirmed him therein, by observing that Percy had made him great professions of friendship.

Though there was no other materials visible, yet Suffolk thought it was necessary to make a further search; and, upon his return to the king, a resolution was taken that it should be made in such a manner as should be effectual, without scandalizing any body, or giving any alarm.

Sir Thomas Knevet, steward of Westminster, was accordingly ordered, under the pretext of searching for stolen tapestry hangings in that place, and other houses thereabouts, to remove the wood, and see if anything was concealed underneath. This gentleman going at midnight, with several attendants, to the cellar, met Fawkes, just coming out of it, booted and spurred, with a tinder-box and three matches in his pockets, and seizing him without any ceremony, or asking him any questions, as soon as the removal of the wood discovered the barrels of gunpowder, he caused him to be bound, and properly secured.

Fawkes, who was a hardened and intrepid villain, made no hesitation of avowing the design, and that it was to have been executed on the morrow. He made the same acknowledgment at his examination before a committee of the council; and though he did not deny having some associates in this conspiracy, yet no threats of torture could make him discover any of them, he declaring that "he was ready to die, and had rather suffer ten thousand deaths, than willingly accuse his master, or any other."

By repeated examinations, however, and assurances of his master's being apprehended, he at length acknowledged, "that whilst he was abroad, Percy had kept the keys of the cellar, had been in it since the powder had been laid there, and, in effect, that he was one of the principal actors in the intended tragedy."

In the mean time it was found out, that Percy had come post out of the north on Saturday night, the 2d of November, and had dined on Monday at Sion-house, with the earl of Northumberland; that Fawkes had met him on the road, and that, after the lord chamberlain had been that evening in the cellar, he went, about six o'clock, to his master, who had fled immediately, apprehending the plot was detected.

The news of the discovery immediately spreading, the conspirators fled different ways, but chiefly into Warwickshire, where Sir Everard Digby had appointed a hunting-match, near Dunchurch, to get a number of recusants together, sufficient to seize the princess Elizabeth; but this design was prevented by her taking refuge in Coventry; and their whole party, making about one hundred, retired to Holbeach, the seat of Sir Stephen Littleton, on the borders of Staffordshire, having broken open stables, and taken horses from different people in the adjoining counties.

Sir Richard Walsh, high sheriff of Worcestershire, pursued them to Holbeach, where he invested them, and summoned them to surrender. In preparing for their defence, they put some moist powder before a fire to dry, and a spark from the coals setting it on fire, some of the conspirators were so burned in their faces, thighs, and arms, that they were scarcely able to handle their weapons. Their case was desperate, and no means of escape appearing, unless by forcing their way through the assailants, they made a furious sally for that purpose. Catesby (who first proposed the manner of the plot) and Percy were both killed. Thomas Winter, Grant, Digby, Rockwood, and Bates, were taken and carried to London, were the first made a full discovery of the conspiracy. Tresham, lurking about the city, and frequently shifting his quarters, was apprehended soon after, and having confessed the whole matter, died of the strangury, in the Tower. The earl of Northumberland, suspected on account of his being related to Thomas Percy, was, by way of precaution, committed to the custody of the archbishop of Canterbury, at Lambeth; and was afterwards fined thirty thousand pounds, and sent to the Tower, for admitting Percy into the band of gentlemen pensioners, without tending him the oath of supremacy.

Some escaped to Calais, and arriving there with others, who fled to avoid a persecution which they apprehended on this occasion, were kindly received by the governor; but one of them declaring before him, that he was not so much concerned at his exile, as that the powder plot did not take effect, the governor was so much incensed at his glorying in such an execrable piece of iniquity, that, in a sudden impulse of indignation, he endeavoured to throw him into the sea.

On the 27th of January, 1606, eight of the conspirators were tried and convicted, among whom was Sir Everard Digby, the only one that pleaded guilty to the indictment, though all the rest had confessed their guilt before. Digby was executed on the 30th of the same month, with Robert Winter, Grant, and Bates, at the west end of St. Paul's churchyard; Thomas Winter, Keyes, Rockwood, and Fawkes, were executed the following day in Old Palace yard.

Garnet was tried on the 28th of March, "for his knowledge and concealment of the conspiracy; for administering an oath of secrecy to the conspirators, for persuading them of the lawfulness of the treason, and for praying for the success of the great action in hand at the beginning of the parliament." Being found guilty,[C] he received sentence of death, but was not executed till the 3d of May, when, confessing his own guilt, and the iniquity of the enterprise, he exhorted all Roman Catholics to abstain from the like treasonable practices in future. Gerard and Hall, two Jesuits, got abroad; and Littleton, with several others, were executed in the country.

The Lord Monteagle had a grant of two hundred pounds a year in land, and a pension of five hundred pounds for life, as a reward for discovering the letter which gave the first hint of the conspiracy; and the anniversary of this providential deliverance was ordered to be for ever commemorated by prayer and thanksgiving.

Thus was this diabolical scheme happily rendered abortive, and the authors of it brought to that condign punishment which their wickedness merited. In this affair Providence manifestly interposed in behalf of the protestants, and saved them from that destruction which must have taken place had the scheme succeeded according to the wishes of a bigoted, superstitious, and blood-thirsty faction.

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CHAPTER XV.

RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE PROTESTANT RELIGION IN IRELAND; WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE BARBAROUS MASSACRE OF 1641.

The gloom of popery had overshadowed Ireland from its first establishment there till the reign of Henry VIII. when the rays of the gospel began to dispel the darkness, and afford that light which till then had been unknown in that island. The abject ignorance in which the people were held, with the absurd and superstitious notions they entertained, were sufficiently evident to many; and the artifices of their priests were so conspicuous, that several persons of distinction, who had hitherto been strenuous papists, would willingly have endeavoured to shake off the yoke, and embrace the protestant religion; but the natural ferocity of the people, and their strong attachment to the ridiculous doctrines which they had been taught, made the attempt dangerous. It was, however, at length undertaken, though attended with the most horrid and disastrous consequences.

The introduction of the protestant religion into Ireland may be principally attributed to George Browne, an Englishman, who was consecrated archbishop of Dublin on the 19th of March, 1535. He had formerly been an Augustine friar, and was promoted to the mitre on account of his merit.

After having enjoyed his dignity about five years, he, at the time that Henry VIII. was suppressing the religious houses in England, caused all the relics and images to be removed out of the two cathedrals in Dublin, and the other churches in his diocese; in the place of which he caused to be put up the Lord's prayer, the creed, and the ten commandments.

A short time after this he received a letter from Thomas Cromwell, lord-privy seal, informing him that Henry VIII. having thrown off the papal supremacy in England, was determined to do the like in Ireland; and that he thereupon had appointed him (archbishop Browne) one of the commissioners for seeing this order put in execution. The archbishop answered, that he had employed his utmost endeavours at the hazard of his life, to cause the Irish nobility and gentry to acknowledge Henry as their supreme head, in matters both spiritual and temporal; but had met with a most violent opposition, especially from George, archbishop of Armagh; that this prelate had, in a speech to his clergy, laid a curse on all those who should own his highness'[D] supremacy: adding, that their isle, called in the Chronicles Insula Sacra, or the Holy Island, belonged to none but the bishop of Rome, and that the king's progenitors had received it from the pope. He observed likewise, that the archbishop and clergy of Armagh, had each despatched a courier to Rome; and that it would be necessary for a parliament to be called in Ireland, to pass an act of supremacy, the people not regarding the king's commission without the sanction of the legislative assembly. He concluded with observing, that the popes had kept the people in the most profound ignorance; that the clergy were exceedingly illiterate; that the common people were more zealous, in their blindness, than the saints and martyrs had been in the defence of truth at the beginning of the gospel; and that it was to be feared Shan O'Neal, a chieftain of great power in the northern part of the island, was decidedly opposed to the king's commission.

In pursuance of this advice, the following year a parliament was summoned to meet at Dublin, by order of Leonard Grey, at that time lord-lieutenant. At this assembly archbishop Browne made a speech in which he set forth, that the bishops of Rome used, anciently, to acknowledge emperors, kings, and princes, to be supreme in their own dominions, and, therefore, that he himself would vote king Henry VIII. as supreme in all matters, both ecclesiastical and temporal. He concluded with saying, that whosoever should refuse to vote for this act, was not a true subject of the king. This speech greatly startled the other bishops and lords; but at length, after violent debates, the king's supremacy was allowed.

Two years after this, the archbishop wrote a second letter to lord Cromwell, complaining of the clergy, and hinting at the machinations which the pope was then carrying on against the advocates of the gospel. This letter is dated from Dublin, in April, 1538; and among other matters, the archbishop says, "A bird may be taught to speak with as much sense as many of the clergy do in this country. These, though not scholars, yet are crafty to cozen the poor common people and to dissuade them from following his highness' orders. The country folk here much hate your lordship, and despitefully call you, in their Irish tongue, the Blacksmith's Son. As a friend, I desire your lordship to look well to your noble person. Rome hath a great kindness for the duke of Norfolk, and great favors for this nation, purposely to oppose his highness."

A short time after this, the pope sent over to Ireland (directed to the Archbishop of Armagh and his clergy) a bull of excommunication against all who had, or should own the king's supremacy within the Irish nation; denouncing a curse on all of them, and theirs, who should not, within forty days, acknowledge to their confessors, that they had done amiss in so doing.

Archbishop Browne gave notice of this in a letter, dated, Dublin, May, 1538. Part of the form of confession, or vow, sent over to these Irish papists, ran as follows; "I do farther declare him or her, father or mother, brother or sister, son or daughter, husband or wife, uncle or aunt, nephew or niece, kinsman or kinswoman, master or mistress, and all others, nearest or dearest relations, friend or acquaintance whatsoever, accursed, that either do or shall hold, for the time to come, any ecclesiastical or civil power above the authority of the mother church; or that do or shall obey, for the time to come, any of her the mother of churches' opposers or enemies, or contrary to the same, of which I have here sworn unto: so God, the Blessed Virgin, St. Peter, St. Paul, and the Holy Evangelists, help me, &c." This is an exact agreement with the doctrines promulgated by the councils of Lateran and Constance, which expressly declare, that no favour should be shown to heretics, nor faith kept with them; that they ought to be excommunicated and condemned, and their estates confiscated; and that princes are obliged, by a solemn oath, to root them out of their respective dominions.

How abominable a church must that be, which thus dares to trample upon all authority! how besotted the people who regard the injunctions of such a church!

In the archbishop's last-mentioned letter, dated May, 1538, he says, "His highness' viceroy of this nation is of little or no power with the old natives. Now both English and Irish begin to oppose your lordship's orders, and to lay aside their national quarrels, which I fear will (if any thing will) cause a foreigner to invade this nation."

Not long after this, Archbishop Browne seized one Thady O'Brian, a Franciscan friar, who had in his possession a paper sent from Rome dated May, 1538, and directed to O'Neal. In this letter were the following words: "His holiness, Paul, now pope, and the council of the fathers, have lately found, in Rome, a prophecy of one St. Lacerianus, an Irish bishop of Cashel, in which he saith, that the mother church of Rome falleth, when, in Ireland, the catholic faith is overcome. Therefore, for the glory of the mother church, the honour of St. Peter, and your own secureness, suppress heresy, and his holiness' enemies."

This Thady O'Brian, after farther examination and search made, was pilloried, and kept close prisoner, till the king's orders arrived in what manner he should be farther disposed of. But order coming over from England that he was to be hanged, he laid violent hands on himself in the castle of Dublin. His body was afterwards carried to Gallows-green, where, after being hanged up for some time, it was interred.

After the accession of Edward VI. to the throne of England, an order was directed to Sir Anthony Leger, the lord-deputy of Ireland, commanding that the liturgy in English be forthwith set up in Ireland, there to be observed within the several bishoprics, cathedrals, and parish churches; and it was first read in Christ-church, Dublin, on Easter day, 1551, before the said Sir Anthony, Archbishop Browne, and others. Part of the royal order for this purpose was as follows: "Whereas, our gracious father, King Henry VIII. taking into consideration the bondage and heavy yoke that his true and faithful subjects sustained, under the jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome; how several fabulous stories and lying wonders misled our subjects; dispensing with the sins of our nations, by their indulgences and pardons, for gain; purposely to cherish all evil vices, as robberies, rebellions, theft, whoredoms, blasphemy, idolatry, &c. our gracious father hereupon dissolved all priories, monasteries, abbeys, and other pretended religious houses; as being but nurseries for vice or luxury, more than for sacred learning," &c.

On the day after the common-prayer was first used in Christ-church, Dublin, the following wicked scheme was projected by the papists:

In the church was left a marble image of Christ, holding a reed in his hand, with a crown of thorns on his head. Whilst the English service (the Common Prayer) was being read before the lord-lieutenant, the archbishop of Dublin, the privy-council, the lord-mayor, and a great congregation, blood was seen to run through the crevices of the crown of thorns, and to trickle down the face of the image. On this, some of the contrivers of the imposture cried aloud: "See how our Saviour's image sweats blood! But it must necessarily do this, since heresy is come into the church." Immediately many of the lower order of people, indeed the vulgar of all ranks, were terrified at the sight of so miraculous and undeniable an evidence of the divine displeasure; they hastened from the church, convinced that the doctrines of protestantism emanated from an infernal source, and that salvation was only to be found in the bosom of their own infallible church.

This incident, however ludicrous it may appear to the enlightened reader, had great influence over the minds of the ignorant Irish, and answered the ends of the impudent imposters who contrived it, so far as to check the progress of the reformed religion in Ireland very materially; many persons could not resist the conviction that there were many errors and corruptions in the Romish church, but they were awed into silence by this pretended manifestation of Divine wrath, which was magnified beyond measure by the bigoted and interested priesthood.

We have very few particulars as to the state of religion in Ireland during the remaining portion of the reign of Edward VI. and the greater part of that of Mary. Towards the conclusion of the barbarous sway of that relentless bigot, she attempted to extend her inhuman persecutions to this island; but her diabolical intentions were happily frustrated in the following providential manner, the particulars of which are related by historians of good authority.

Mary had appointed Dr. Cole (an agent of the blood-thirsty Bonner) one of the commissioners for carrying her barbarous intentions into effect. He having arrived at Chester with his commission, the mayor of that city, being a papist, waited upon him; when the doctor taking out of his cloak-bag a leathern case, said to him, "Here is a commission that shall lash the heretics of Ireland." The good woman of the house being a protestant, and having a brother in Dublin, named John Edmunds, was greatly troubled at what she heard. But watching her opportunity, whilst the mayor was taking his leave, and the doctor politely accompanying him down stairs, she opened the box, took out the commission, and in its stead laid a sheet of paper, with a pack of cards, and the knave of clubs at top. The doctor, not suspecting the trick that had been played him, put up the box, and arrived with it in Dublin, in September, 1558.

Anxious to accomplish the intentions of his "pious" mistress, he immediately waited upon Lord Fitz-Walter, at that time viceroy, and presented the box to him; which being opened, nothing was found in it but a pack of cards. This startling all the persons present, his lordship said, "We must procure another commission; and in the mean time let us shuffle the cards!"

Dr. Cole, however, would have directly returned to England to get another commission; but waiting for a favourable wind, news arrived that queen Mary was dead, and by this means the protestants escaped a most cruel persecution. The above relation as we before observed, is confirmed by historians of the greatest credit, who add, that queen Elizabeth settled a pension of forty pounds per annum upon the above mentioned Elizabeth Edmunds, for having thus saved the lives of her protestant subjects.

During the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. Ireland was almost constantly agitated by rebellions and insurrections, which, although not always taking their rise from the difference of religious opinions between the English and Irish, were aggravated and rendered more bitter and irreconcilable from that cause. The popish priests artfully exaggerated the faults of the English government, and continually urged to their ignorant and prejudiced hearers the lawfulness of killing the protestants, assuring them that all catholics who were slain in the prosecution of so pious an enterprise, would be immediately received into everlasting felicity. The naturally ungovernable dispositions of the Irish, acted upon by these designing men, drove them into continual acts of barbarous and unjustifiable violence; and it must be confessed that the unsettled and arbitrary nature of the authority exercised by the English governors, was but little calculated to gain their affections. The Spaniards, too, by landing forces in the south, and giving every encouragement to the discontented natives to join their standard, kept the island in a continual state of turbulence and warfare. In 1601, they disembarked a body of 4000 men at Kinsale, and commenced what they called "the holy war for the preservation of the faith in Ireland;" they were assisted by great numbers of the Irish, but were at length totally defeated by the deputy, lord Mountjoy, and his officers.

This closed the transactions of Elizabeth's reign with respect to Ireland; an interval of apparent tranquility followed, but the popish priesthood, ever restless and designing, sought to undermine by secret machinations, that government and that faith which they durst no longer openly attack. The pacific reign of James afforded them the opportunity of increasing their strength and maturing their schemes, and under his successor, Charles I. their numbers were greatly increased by titular Romish archbishops, bishops, deans, vicars-general, abbots, priests, and friars; for which reason, in 1629, the public exercise of the popish rites and ceremonies was forbidden.

But notwithstanding this, soon afterwards, the Romish clergy erected a new popish university in the city of Dublin. They also proceeded to build monasteries and nunneries in various parts of the kingdom; in which places these very Romish clergy, and the chiefs of the Irish, held frequent meetings; and from thence, used to pass to and fro, to France, Spain, Flanders, Lorrain, and Rome; where the detestable plot of 1641 was hatching by the family of the O'Neals and their followers.

A short time before the horrid conspiracy broke out, which we are now going to relate, the papists in Ireland had presented a remonstrance to the lords-justices of that kingdom, demanding the free exercise of their religion, and a repeal of all laws to the contrary, to which both houses of parliament in England, solemnly answered, that they would never grant any toleration to the popish religion in that kingdom.

This farther irritated the papists to put in execution the diabolical plot concerted for the destruction of the protestants; and it failed not of the success wished for by its malicious and rancorous projectors.

The design of this horrid conspiracy was, that a general insurrection should take place at the same time throughout the kingdom, and that all the protestants, without exception, should be murdered. The day fixed for this horrid massacre, was the 23d of October, 1641, the feast of Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits; and the chief conspirators, in the principal parts of the kingdom, made the necessary preparations for the intended conflict.

In order that this detested scheme might the more infallibly succeed, the most distinguished artifices were practised by the papists; and their behaviour in their visits to the protestants, at this time, was with more seeming kindness than they had hitherto shown, which was done the more completely to effect the inhuman and treacherous designs then meditating against them.

The execution of this savage conspiracy was delayed till the approach of winter, that sending troops from England might be attended with greater difficulty. Cardinal Richelieu, the French minister, had promised the conspirators a considerable supply of men and money; and many Irish officers had given the strongest assurances that they would heartily concur with their catholic brethren, as soon as the insurrection took place.

The day preceding that appointed for carrying this horrid design into execution, was now arrived, when, happily for the metropolis of the kingdom, the conspiracy was discovered by one Owen O'Connelly, an Irishman, for which most signal service the English parliament voted him 500l. and a pension of 200l. during his life.

So very seasonably was this plot discovered, even but a few hours before the city and castle of Dublin were to have been surprised, that the lords-justices had but just time to put themselves, and the city, in a proper posture of defence. The lord M'Guire, who was the principal leader here, with his accomplices, were seized the same evening in the city; and in their lodgings were found swords, hatchets, pole-axes, hammers, and such other instruments of death as had been prepared for the destruction and extirpation of the protestants in that part of the kingdom.

Thus was the metropolis happily preserved; but the bloody part of the intended tragedy was past prevention. The conspirators were in arms all over the kingdom early in the morning of the day appointed, and every protestant who fell in their way was immediately murdered. No age, no sex, no condition, was spared. The wife weeping for her butchered husband, and embracing her helpless children, was pierced with them, and perished by the same stroke. The old, the young, the vigorous, and the infirm, underwent the same fate, and were blended in one common ruin. In vain did flight save from the first assault, destruction was every where let loose, and met the hunted victims at every turn. In vain was recourse had to relations, to companions, to friends; all connexions were dissolved; and death was dealt by that hand from which protection was implored and expected. Without provocation, without opposition, the astonished English, living in profound peace, and, as they thought, full security, were massacred by their nearest neighbours, with whom they had long maintained a continued intercourse of kindness and good offices. Nay, even death was the slightest punishment inflicted by these monsters in human form; all the tortures which wanton cruelty could invent, all the lingering pains of body, the anguish of mind, the agonies of despair, could not satiate revenge excited without injury, and cruelly derived from no just cause whatever. Depraved nature, even perverted religion, though encouraged by the utmost license, cannot reach to a greater pitch of ferocity than appeared in these merciless barbarians. Even the weaker sex themselves, naturally tender to their own sufferings, and compassionate to those of others, have emulated their robust companions in the practice of every cruelty. The very children, taught by example, and encouraged by the exhortation of their parents, dealt their feeble blows on the dead carcasses of the defenceless children of the English.

Nor was the avarice of the Irish sufficient to produce the least restraint on their cruelty. Such was their frenzy, that the cattle they had seized, and by rapine had made their own, were, because they bore the name of English, wantonly slaughtered, or, when covered with wounds, turned loose into the woods, there to perish by slow and lingering torments.

The commodious habitations of the planters were laid in ashes, or levelled with the ground. And where the wretched owners had shut themselves up in the houses, and were preparing for defence, they perished in the flames together with their wives and children.

Such is the general description of this unparalleled massacre; but it now remains, from the nature of our work, that we proceed to particulars.

The bigoted and merciless papists had no sooner begun to imbrue their hands in blood, than they repeated the horrid tragedy day after day, and the protestants in all parts of the kingdom fell victims to their fury by deaths of the most unheard of cruelty.

The ignorant Irish were more strongly instigated to execute the infernal business by the jesuits, priests, and friars, who, when the day for the execution of the plot was agreed on, recommended in their prayers, diligence in the great design, which they said would greatly tend to the prosperity of the kingdom, and to the advancement of the Catholic cause. They every where declared to the common people, that the protestants were heretics, and ought not to be suffered to live any longer among them; adding, that it was no more sin to kill an Englishman than to kill a dog; and that the relieving or protecting them was a crime of the most unpardonable nature.

The papists having besieged the town and castle of Longford, and the inhabitants of the latter, who were protestants, surrendering on condition of being allowed quarter, the besiegers, the instant the towns-people appeared, attacked them in a most unmerciful manner, their priest, as a signal for the rest to fall on, first ripping open the belly of the English protestant minister; after which his followers murdered all the rest, some of whom they hung, others were stabbed or shot and great numbers knocked on the head with axes provided for the purpose.

The garrison at Sligo was treated in like manner by O'Connor Slygah; who, upon the protestants quitting their holds, promised them quarter, and to convey them safe over the Curlew mountains, to Roscommon. But he first imprisoned them in a most loathsome jail, allowing them only grains for their food. Afterward, when some papists were merry over their cups, who were come to congratulate their wicked brethren for their victory over these unhappy creatures, those protestants who survived were brought forth by the White-friars, and were either killed, or precipitated over the bridge into a swift river, where they were soon destroyed. It is added, that this wicked company of White-friars went, some time after, in solemn procession, with holy water in their hands, to sprinkle the river; on pretence of cleansing and purifying it from the stains and pollution of the blood and dead bodies of the heretics, as they called the unfortunate protestants who were inhumanly slaughtered at this very time.

At Kilmore, Dr. Bedell, bishop of that see, had charitably settled and supported a great number of distressed protestants, who had fled from their habitations to escape the diabolical cruelties committed by the papists. But they did not long enjoy the consolation of living together; the good prelate was forcibly dragged from his episcopal residence, which was immediately occupied by Dr. Swiney, the popish titular bishop of Kilmore, who said mass in the church the Sunday following, and then seized on all the goods and effects belonging to the persecuted bishop.

Soon after this, the papists forced Dr. Bedell, his two sons, and the rest of his family, with some of the chief of the protestants whom he had protected, into a ruinous castle, called Lochwater, situated in a lake near the sea. Here he remained with his companions some weeks, all of them daily expecting to be put to death. The greatest part of them were stripped naked, by which means, as the season was cold, (it being in the month of December) and the building in which they were confined open at the top, they suffered the most severe hardships. They continued in this situation till the 7th of January, when they were all released. The bishop was courteously received into the house of Dennis O'Sheridan, one of his clergy, whom he had made a convert to the church of England; but he did not long survive this kindness. During his residence here, he spent the whole of his time in religious exercises, the better to fit and prepare himself and his sorrowful companions, for their great change as not but certain death was perpetually before their eyes. He was at this time in the 71st year of his age, and being afflicted with a violent ague caught in his late cold and desolate habitation on the lake, it soon threw him into a fever of the most dangerous nature. Finding his dissolution at hand, he received it with joy, like one of the primitive martyrs just hastening to his crown of glory. After having addressed his little flock, and exhorted them to patience, in the most pathetic manner, as they saw their own last day approaching, after having solemnly blessed his people, his family, and his children, he finished the course of his ministry and life together, on the 7th day of February, 1642. His friends and relations applied to the intruding bishop for leave to bury him, which was with difficulty obtained; he, at first telling them that the churchyard was holy ground, and should be no longer defiled with heretics: however, leave was at last granted, and though the church funeral service was not used at the solemnity, (for fear of the Irish papists) yet some of the better sort, who had the highest veneration for him while living, attended his remains to the grave. At his interment, they discharged a volley of shot, crying out, "Requiescat in pace ultimas Anglorum;" that is, May the last of the English rest in peace. Adding, that as he was one of the best so he should be the last English bishop found among them. His learning was very extensive; and he would have given the world a greater proof of it, had he printed all he wrote. Scarce any of his writings were saved; the papists having destroyed most of his papers and his library. He had gathered a vast heap of critical expositions of scripture, all which with a great trunk full of his manuscripts, fell into the hands of the Irish. Happily his great Hebrew MS. was preserved, and is now in the library of Emanuel college, Oxford.

In the barony of Terawley, the papists, at the instigation of the friars, compelled above forty English protestants, some of whom were women and children, to the hard fate either of falling by the sword, or of drowning in the sea. These choosing the latter, were accordingly forced, by the naked weapons of their inexorable persecutors, into the deep, where, with their children in their arms, they first waded up to their chins, and afterwards sunk down and perished together.

In the castle of Lisgool upwards of one hundred and fifty men, women, and children, were all burnt together; and at the castle of Moneah not less than one hundred were all put to the sword.—Great numbers were also murdered at the castle of Tullah, which was delivered up to M'Guire on condition of having fair quarter; but no sooner had that base villain got possession of the place, than he ordered his followers to murder the people, which was immediately done with the greatest cruelty.

Many others were put to deaths of the most horrid nature, and such as could have been invented only by demons instead of men. Some of them were laid with the centre of their backs on the axle-tree of a carriage, with their legs resting on the ground on one side, and then arms and head on the other. In this position one of the savages scourged the wretched object on the thighs, legs, &c. while another set on furious dogs, who tore to pieces the arms and upper parts of the body; and in this dreadful manner were they deprived of their existence. Great numbers were fastened to horses' tails, and the beasts being set on full gallop by their riders, the wretched victims were dragged along till they expired. Others were hung on lofty gibbets, and a fire being kindled under them, they finished their lives, partly by hanging, and partly by suffocation.

Nor did the more tender sex escape the least particle of cruelty that could be projected by their merciless and furious persecutors. Many women, of all ages, were put to deaths of the most cruel nature. Some, in particular, were fastened with their backs to strong posts, and being stripped to their waists, the inhuman monsters cut off their right breasts with shears, which, of course, put them to the most excruciating torments; and in this position they were left, till, from the loss of blood, they expired.

Such was the savage ferocity of these barbarians, that even unborn infants were dragged from the womb to become victims to their rage. Many unhappy mothers were hung naked on the branches of trees, and their bodies being cut open, the innocent offsprings were taken from them, and thrown to dogs and swine. And to increase the horrid scene, they would oblige the husband to be a spectator before suffered himself.

At the town of Issenskeath they hanged above a hundred Scottish protestants, showing them no more mercy than they did to the English. M'Guire, going to the castle of that town, desired to speak with the governor, when being admitted, he immediately burnt the records of the county, which were kept there. He then demanded £1000 of the governor, which having received, he immediately compelled him to hear mass, and to swear that he would continue so to do. And to complete his horrid barbarities, he ordered the wife and children of the governor to be hung before his face; besides massacring at least one hundred of the inhabitants. Upwards of one thousand men, women and children, were driven, in different companies, to Porterdown bridge, which was broken in the middle, and there compelled to throw themselves into the water, and such as attempted to reach the shore were knocked on the head.

In the same part of the country, at least four thousand persons were drowned in different places. The inhuman papists, after first stripping them, drove them like beasts to the spot fixed on for their destruction; and if any, through fatigue, or natural infirmities, were slack in their pace, they pricked them with their swords and pikes; and to strike terror on the multitude, they murdered some by the way.—Many of these poor wretches, when thrown into the water, endeavoured to save themselves by swimming to the shore; but their merciless persecutors prevented their endeavors taking effect by shooting them in the water.

In one place one hundred and forty English, after being driven for many miles stark naked, and in the most severe weather, were all murdered on the same spot, some being hanged, others burnt, some shot, and many of them buried alive; and so cruel were their tormentors, that they would not suffer them to pray before they robbed them of their miserable existence.

Other companies they took under pretence of safe conduct, who, from that consideration, proceeded cheerfully on their journey; but when the treacherous papists had got them to a convenient spot, they butchered them all in the most cruel manner.

One hundred and fifteen men, women, and children, were conducted, by order of Sir Phelim O'Neal, to Porterdown bridge, where they were all forced into the river, and drowned. One woman, named Campbell, finding no probability of escaping, suddenly clasped one of the chief of the papists in her arms, and held him so fast, that they were both drowned together.

In Killoman they massacred forty-eight families, among whom twenty-two were burnt together in one house. The rest were either hanged, shot, or drowned.

In Kilmore the inhabitants, which consisted of about two hundred families, all fell victims to their rage. Some of them sat in the stocks till they confessed where their money was; after which they put them to death. The whole county was one common scene of butchery, and many thousands perished, in a short time, by sword, famine, fire, water, and other the most cruel deaths, that rage and malice could invent.

These bloody villains showed so much favour to some as to despatch them immediately; but they would by no means suffer them to pray. Others they imprisoned in filthy dungeons, putting heavy bolts on their legs, and keeping them there till they were starved to death.

At Casel they put all the protestants into a loathsome dungeon, where they kept them together, for several weeks, in the greatest misery. At length they were released, when some of them were barbarously mangled, and left on the highways to perish at leisure; others were hanged, and some were buried in the ground upright, with their heads above the earth, and the papists, to increase their misery, treating them with derision during their sufferings. In the county of Antrim they murdered nine hundred and fifty-four protestants in one morning; and afterward about twelve hundred more in that county.

At a town called Lisnegary, they forced twenty-four protestants into a house, and then setting fire to it, burned them together, counterfeiting their outcries in derision to the others.

Among other acts of cruelty they took two children belonging to an English woman, and dashed out their brains before her face; after which they threw the mother into a river, and she was drowned. They served many other children in the like manner, to the great affliction of their parents, and the disgrace of human nature.

In Kilkenny all the protestants, without exception, were put to death; and some of them in so cruel a manner, as, perhaps, was never before thought of.

They beat an English woman with such savage barbarity, that she had scarce a whole bone left; after which they threw her into a ditch; but not satisfied with this, they took her child, a girl about six years of age and after ripping up its belly, threw it to its mother, there to languish till it perished. They forced one man to go to mass, after which they ripped open his body, and in that manner left him. They sawed another asunder, cut the throat of his wife, and after having dashed out the brains of their child, an infant, threw it to the swine, who greedily devoured it.

After committing these, and several other horrid cruelties, they took the heads of seven protestants, and among them that of a pious minister, all which they fixed up at the market cross. They put a gag into the minister's mouth, then slit his cheeks to his ears, and laying a leaf of a Bible before it, bid him preach, for his mouth was wide enough. They did several other things by way of derision, and expressed the greatest satisfaction at having thus murdered and exposed the unhappy protestants.

It is impossible to conceive the pleasure these monsters took in exercising their cruelty, and to increase the misery of those who fell into their hands, when they butchered them they would say, "Your soul to the devil." One of these miscreants would come into a house with his hands imbued in blood, and boast that it was English blood, and that his sword had pricked the white skins of the protestants, even to the hilt. When any one of them had killed a protestant, others would come and receive a gratification in cutting and mangling the body; after which they left it exposed to be devoured by dogs; and when they had slain a number of them they would boast, that the devil was beholden to them for sending so many souls to hell. But it is no wonder they should thus treat the innocent christians, when they hesitated not to commit blasphemy against God and his most holy word.

In one place they burnt two protestant Bibles, and then said they had burnt hell-fire. In the church at Powerscourt they burnt the pulpit, pews, chests, and Bibles belonging to it. They took other Bibles, and after wetting them with dirty water, dashed them in the faces of the protestants, saying, "We know you love a good lesson; here is an excellent one for you; come to-morrow, and you shall have as good a sermon as this."

Some of the protestants they dragged by the hair of their heads into the church, where they stripped and whipped them in the most cruel manner, telling them, at the same time, "That if they came to-morrow, they should hear the like sermon."

In Munster they put to death several ministers in the most shocking manner. One, in particular, they stripped stark naked, and driving him before them, pricked him with swords and darts till he fell down, and expired.

In some places they plucked out the eyes, and cut off the hands of the protestants, and in that manner turned them into the fields, there to wander out their miserable existence. They obliged many young men to force their aged parents to a river, where they were drowned; wives to assist in hanging their husbands; and mothers to cut the throats of their children.

In one place they compelled a young man to kill his father, and then immediately hanged him. In another they forced a woman to kill her husband, then obliged the son to kill her, and afterward shot him through the head.

At a place called Glaslow, a popish priest, with some others, prevailed on forty protestants to be reconciled to the church of Rome. They had no sooner done this, than they told them they were in good faith, and that they would prevent their falling from it, and turning heretics, by sending them out of the world, which they did by immediately cutting their throats.

In the county of Tipperary upwards of thirty protestants, men, women, and children, fell into the hands of the papists, who, after stripping them naked, murdered them with stones, pole-axes, swords, and other weapons.

In the county of Mayo about sixty protestants, fifteen of whom were ministers, were, upon covenant, to be safely conducted to Galway, by one Edmund Burke and his soldiers; but that inhuman monster by the way drew his sword, as an intimation of his design to the rest, who immediately followed his example, and murdered the whole, some of whom they stabbed, others were run through the body with pikes, and several were drowned.

In Queen's county great numbers of protestants were put to the most shocking deaths. Fifty or sixty were placed together in one house, which being set on fire, they all perished in the flames. Many were stripped naked, and being fastened to horses by ropes placed round their middles, were dragged through bogs till they expired. Some were hung by the feet to tenter-hooks driven into poles; and in that wretched posture left till they perished. Others were fastened to the trunk of a tree, with a branch at top. Over this branch hung one arm, which principally supported the weight of the body; and one of the legs was turned up, and fastened to the trunk, while the other hung straight. In this dreadful and uneasy posture did they remain, as long as life would permit, pleasing spectacles to their blood-thirsty persecutors.

At Clownes seventeen men were buried alive; and an Englishman, his wife, five children, and a servant maid, were all hung together and afterward thrown into a ditch. They hung many by the arms to branches of trees, with a weight to their feet; and others by the middle, in which postures they left them till they expired. Several were hung on windmills, and before they were half dead, the barbarians cut them in pieces with their swords. Others, both men, women, and children, they cut and hacked in various parts of their bodies, and left them wallowing in their blood to perish where they fell. One poor woman they hung on a gibbet, with her child, an infant about a twelve-month old, the latter of whom was hung by the neck with the hair of its mother's head, and in that manner finished its short but miserable existence.

In the county of Tyrone no less than three hundred protestants were drowned in one day; and many others were hanged, burned, and otherwise put to death. Dr. Maxwell, rector of Tyrone, lived at this time near Armagh, and suffered greatly from these merciless savages. This person, in his examination, taken upon oath before the king's commissioners, declared, that the Irish papists owned to him, that they, at several times, had destroyed, in one place, 12,000 protestants, whom they inhumanly slaughtered at Glynwood, in their flight from the county of Armagh.

As the river Bann was not fordable, and the bridge broken down, the Irish forced thither at different times, a great number of unarmed, defenceless protestants, and with pikes and swords violently thrust above one thousand into the river, where they miserably perished.

Nor did the cathedral of Armagh escape the fury of these barbarians, it being maliciously set on fire by their leaders, and burnt to the ground. And to extirpate, if possible, the very race of those unhappy protestants, who lived in or near Armagh, the Irish first burnt all their houses, and then gathered together many hundreds of those innocent people, young and old, on pretence of allowing them a guard and safe conduct to Colerain; when they treacherously fell on them by the way, and inhumanly murdered them.

The like horrid barbarities with those we have particularized, were practised on the wretched protestants in almost all parts of the kingdom; and, when an estimate was afterward made of the number who were sacrificed to gratify the diabolical souls of the papists, it amounted to one hundred and fifty thousand. But it now remains that we proceed to the particulars that followed.

These desperate wretches, flushed and grown insolent with success, (though by methods attended with such excessive barbarities as perhaps not to be equalled) soon got possession of the castle of Newry, where the king's stores and ammunition were lodged; and, with as little difficulty, made themselves masters of Dundalk. They afterward took the town of Ardee, where they murdered all the protestants, and then proceeded to Drogheda. The garrison of Drogheda was in no condition to sustain a siege, notwithstanding which, as often as the Irish renewed their attacks they were vigorously repulsed by a very unequal number of the king's forces, and a few faithful protestant citizens under sir Henry Tichborne, the governor, assisted by the lord viscount Moore. The siege of Drogheda began on the 30th of November, 1641, and held till the 4th of March, 1642, when sir Phelim O'Neal, and the Irish miscreants under him were forced to retire.

In the mean time ten thousand troops were sent from Scotland to the remaining protestants in Ireland, which being properly divided in the most capital parts of the kingdom, happily eclipsed the power of the Irish savages; and the protestants for a time lived in tranquility.

In the reign of king James II. they were again interrupted, for in a parliament held at Dublin in the year 1689, great numbers of the protestant nobility, clergy, and gentry of Ireland, were attainted of high treason. The government of the kingdom was, at that time, invested in the earl of Tyrconnel, a bigoted papist, and an inveterate enemy to the protestants. By his orders they were again persecuted in various parts of the kingdom. The revenues of the city of Dublin were seized, and most of the churches converted into prisons. And had it not been for the resolution and uncommon bravery of the garrisons in the city of Londonderry, and the town of Inniskillin, there had not one place remained for refuge to the distressed protestants in the whole kingdom; but all must have been given up to king James, and to the furious popish party that governed him.

The remarkable siege of Londonderry was opened on the 18th of April, 1689, by twenty thousand papists, the flower of the Irish army. The city was not properly circumstanced to sustain a siege, the defenders consisting of a body of raw undisciplined protestants, who had fled thither for shelter, and half a regiment of lord Mountjoy's disciplined soldiers, with the principal part of the inhabitants, making in all only seven thousand three hundred and sixty-one fighting men.

The besieged hoped, at first, that their stores of corn, and other necessaries, would be sufficient; but by the continuance of the siege their wants increased; and these became at last so heavy, that for a considerable time before the siege was raised, a pint of coarse barley, a small quantity of greens, a few spoonfuls of starch, with a very moderate proportion of horse flesh, were reckoned a week's provision for a soldier. And they were, at length, reduced to such extremities, that they ate dogs, cats, and mice.

Their miseries increasing with the siege, many, through mere hunger and want, pined and languished away, or fell dead in the streets. And it is remarkable, that when their long expected succours arrived from England, they were upon the point of being reduced to this alternative, either to preserve their existence by eating each other, or attempting to fight their way through the Irish, which must have infallibly produced their destruction.

These succours were most happily brought by the ship Mountjoy of Derry, and the Phœnix of Colerain, at which time they had only nine lean horses left with a pint of meal to each man. By hunger, and the fatigues of war, their seven thousand three hundred and sixty-one fighting men, were reduced to four thousand three hundred, one-fourth part of whom were rendered unserviceable.

As the calamities of the besieged were great, so likewise were the terrors and sufferings of their protestant friends and relations; all of whom (even women and children) were forcibly driven from the country thirty miles round, and inhumanly reduced to the sad necessity of continuing some days and nights without food or covering, before the walls of the town; and were thus exposed to the continual fire both of the Irish army from without, and the shot of their friends from within.

But the succours from England happily arriving put an end to their affliction; and the siege was raised on the 31st of July, having been continued upwards of three months.

The day before the siege of Londonderry was raised, the Inniskillers engaged a body of six thousand Irish Roman catholics, at Newton, Butler, or Crown-Castle, of whom near five thousand were slain. This, with the defeat at Londonderry, dispirited the papists, and they gave up all farther attempts to persecute the protestants.

The year following, viz. 1690; the Irish took up arms in favour of the abdicated prince, king James II. but they were totally defeated by his successor king William the Third. That monarch, before he left the country, reduced them to a state of subjection, in which they have ever since continued; and it is to be hoped will so remain as long as time shall be.

By a report made in Ireland, in the year 1731, it appeared that a great number of ecclesiastics had, in defiance of the laws, flocked into that kingdom: that several convents had been opened by jesuits, monks, and friars; that many new and pompous mass-houses had been erected in some of the most conspicuous parts of their great cities, where there had not been any before; and that such swarms of vagrant, immoral Romish priests had appeared, that the very papists themselves considered them as a burthen.

But notwithstanding all this, the protestant interest at present stands upon a much stronger basis than it did a century ago. The Irish, who formerly led an unsettled and roving life, in the woods, bogs, and mountains, and lived on the depredation of their neighbours, they who, in the morning seized the prey, and at night divided the spoil, have, for many years past, become quiet and civilized. They taste the sweets of English society, and the advantages of civil government. They trade in our cities, and are employed in our manufactories. They are received also into English families; and treated with great humanity by the protestants.

The heads of their clans, and the chiefs of the great Irish families, who cruelly oppressed and tyrannized over their vassals, are now dwindled in a great measure to nothing; and most of the ancient popish nobility and gentry of Ireland have renounced the Romish religion.

It is also to be hoped, that inestimable benefits will arise from the establishment of protestant schools in various parts of the kingdom, in which the children of the Roman catholics are instructed in religion and reading, whereby the mist of ignorance is dispelled from their eyes, which was the great source of the cruel transactions that have taken place, at different periods, in that kingdom.

In order to preserve the protestant interest in Ireland upon a solid basis, it behooves all in whom that power is invested, to discharge it with the strictest assiduity and attention; for should it once again lose ground, there is no doubt but the papists would take those advantages they have hitherto done, and thousands might yet fall victims to their malicious bigotry.

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CHAPTER XVI.

THE RISE, PROGRESS, PERSECUTIONS, AND SUFFERINGS OF THE QUAKERS.

In treating of these people in a historical manner, we are obliged to have recourse to much tenderness. That they differ from the generality of protestants in some of the capital points of religion cannot be denied, and yet, as protestant dissenters, they are included under the description of the toleration act. It is not our business to inquire whether people of similar sentiments had any existence in the primitive ages of Christianity: perhaps, in some respects, they had not, but we are to write of them not as what they were, but what they now are. That they have been treated by several writers in a very contemptuous manner, is certain; that they did not deserve such treatment, is equally certain.

The appellation Quakers, was bestowed upon them as a term of reproach, in consequence of their apparent convulsions which they laboured under when they delivered their discourses, because they imagined they were the effect of divine inspiration.

It is not our business, at present, to inquire whether the sentiments of these people are agreeable to the gospel, but this much is certain, that the first leader of them, as a separate body, was a man of obscure birth, who had his first existence in Leicestershire, about the year 1624. In speaking of this man we shall deliver our own sentiments in a historical manner, and joining these to what have been said by the Friends themselves, we shall endeavour to furnish out a complete narrative.

He was descended of honest and respected parents, who brought him up in the national religion: but from a child he appeared religious, still, solid, and observing, beyond his years, and uncommonly knowing in divine things. He was brought up to husbandry, and other country business, and was particularly inclined to the solitary occupation of a shepherd; "an employment," says our author, "that very well suited his mind in several respects, both for its innocency and solitude; and was a just emblem of his after ministry and service." In the year 1646, he entirely forsook the national church, in whose tenets he had been brought up, as before observed; and in 1647, he travelled into Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, without any set purpose of visiting particular places, but in a solitary manner he walked through several towns and villages, which way soever his mind turned. "He fasted much," said Sewell, "and walked often in retired places, with no other companion than his Bible." "He visited the most retired and religious people in those parts," says Penn, "and some there were, short of few, if any, in this nation, who waited for the consolation of Israel night and day; as Zacharias, Anna, and Simeon, did of old time." To these he was sent, and these he sought out in the neighbouring counties, and among them he sojourned till his more ample ministry came upon him. At this time he taught, and was an example of silence, endeavouring to bring them from self-performances; testifying of, and turning them to the light of Christ within them, and encouraging them to wait in patience, and to feel the power of it to stir in their hearts, that their knowledge and worship of God might stand in the power of an endless life which was to be found in the light, as it was obeyed in the manifestation of it in man: for in the word was life, and that life is the light of men. Life in the word, light in men; and life in men too, as the light is obeyed; the children of the light living by the life of the word, by which the word begets them again to God, which is the generation and new birth, without which there is no coming into the kingdom of God, and to which whoever comes is greater than John: that is, than John's dispensation, which was not that of the kingdom, but the consummation of the legal, and forerunning of the gospel times, the time of the kingdom. Accordingly several meetings were gathering in those parts; and thus his time was employed for some years.

In the year 1652, "he had a visitation of the great work of God in the earth, and of the way that he was to go forth, in a public ministry, to begin it." He directed his course northward, "and in every place where he came, if not before he came to it, he had his particular exercise and service shown to him, so that the Lord was his leader indeed." He made great numbers of converts to his opinions, and many pious and good men joined him in his ministry. These were drawn forth especially to visit the public assemblies to reprove, reform, and exhort them; sometimes in markets, fairs, streets, and by the highway-side, "calling people to repentance, and to return to the Lord, with their hearts as well as their mouths; directing them to the light of Christ within them, to see, examine, and to consider their ways by, and to eschew the evil, and to do the good and acceptable will of God."

They were not without opposition in the work they imagined themselves called to, being often set in the stocks, stoned, beaten, whipped and imprisoned, though, as our author observes, honest men of good report, that had left wives, children, houses, and lands, to visit them with a living call to repentance. But these coercive methods rather forwarded than abated their zeal, and in those parts they brought over many proselytes, and amongst them several magistrates, and others of the better sort. They apprehended the Lord had forbidden them to pull off their hats to any one, high or low, and required them to speak to the people, without distinction, in the language of thou and thee. They scrupled bidding people good-morrow, or good-night, nor might they bend the knee to any one, even in supreme authority. Both men and woman went in a plain and simple dress, different from the fashion of the times. They neither gave nor accepted any titles of respect or honour, nor would they call any man master on earth. Several texts of scripture they quoted in defence of these singularities; such as, Swear not at all. How can ye believe who receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour which comes from God only? &c. &c. They placed the basis of religion in an inward light, and an extraordinary impulse of the Holy Spirit.

In 1654, their first separate meeting in London was held in the house of Robert Dring, in Watling-street, for by that time they spread themselves into all parts of the kingdom, and had in many places set up meetings or assemblies, particularly in Lancashire, and the adjacent parts, but they were still exposed to great persecutions and trials of every kind. One of them in a letter to the protector, Oliver Cromwell, represents, though there are no penal laws in force obliging men to comply with the established religion, yet the Quakers are exposed upon other accounts; they are fined and imprisoned for refusing to take an oath; for not paying their tithes; for disturbing the public assemblies, and meeting in the streets, and places of public resort; some of them have been whipped for vagabonds, and for their plain speeches to the magistrate.

Under favour of the then toleration, they opened their meetings at the Bull and Mouth, in Aldersgate-street, where women, as well as men, were moved to speak. Their zeal transported them to some extravagancies, which laid them still more open to the lash of their enemies, who exercised various severities upon them throughout the next reign. Upon the suppression of Venner's mad insurrection, the government, having published a proclamation, forbidding the Anabaptists, Quakers, and Fifth Monarchy Men, to assemble or meet together under pretence of worshipping God, except it be in some parochial church, chapel, or in private houses, by consent of the persons there inhabiting, all meetings in other places being declared to be unlawful and riotous, &c. &c. the Quakers thought it expedient to address the king thereon, which they did in the following words: