It was an expensive matter in those days to have a conscience. Although the penalty of twenty pounds per month, enacted during the reign of Elizabeth, had been mitigated according to the circumstances of families, or suffered in some instances to run on for years, it was occasionally levied all at once, to the ruin of the unhappy Romanist families who conscientiously refused to attend the worship of the Established Church. James I. had mercifully relaxed the severity of these penalties; but his successor was now called upon by the Puritan party in the House of Commons to restore them to their original force. The Church was at this epoch far more induced to grant indulgence than the laity, who, it is strange to say, were the most intolerant among the persecutors of the depressed body of Roman Catholics. Disappointed in their impeachment of Buckingham, the Commons now presented to the King a list of recusants who had been entrusted with offices in the State.
This petition was aimed, of course, at Buckingham, whose mother was a Catholic, and whose wife had been long suspected of holding the tenets of the Romish Church. It was thought sufficient in those times to have a near relation a Romanist, to be disqualified for office.[[323]]
Queen Elizabeth, as we have before observed, when she had any point to gain with her people, used “to tune the pulpits,” as she termed it. It was her practice to have a reserve of preachers ready to extol her designs in or near London, to influential congregations, whenever she required the help of their eloquence.[[324]] This plan was now adopted by Charles, and Laud was employed to call the attention of the public to the cause of the King of Denmark, who had been driven to the last extremity by Count Tilly. The King of Denmark being a Protestant, it was hoped that this scheme would propitiate the party who so vehemently endeavoured to compass the downfall of Buckingham, and who were, for the most part, Puritans.
Unhappily the plan did more harm than good; its motives and signification were suspected, nay, even proclaimed by some of the simple clergy; and Sibthorpe, the Vicar of Brackley, in Northamptonshire--at an assize sermon--gave out plainly that the burden of those instructions which had been distributed among the priesthood was "to show the lawfulness of the general loan which the King now contemplated raising, in lieu of the supplies; to prove the King’s right to impose taxes without the consent of Parliament; and to insist that the people ought cheerfully to submit to such loans and taxes."
The publication of this sermon was forbidden by Archbishop Abbot,[[325]] for it was then illegal to print any book without a permission from the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of London, or the Vice-chancellor of one of the Universities, or some person appointed by them;[[326]] and two fearful Courts of Star-chamber and High Commission threatened any delinquent who attempted to do then what now requires merely the consent of a publisher. Although Abbot had so wisely prohibited Sibthorpe’s discourse, he could not save the King whom Buckingham and Laud counselled. The audacious sermon was published during the following year, under the almost impious title of “Apostolic Obedience.”
END OF VOL. II.
R. BORN, PRINTER, GLOUCESTER STREET, REGENT’S PARK.
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH ST. LONDON