Flagellum Pontificis et Episcoporum Latialium. Auctore Johanne Bastwick. 1635.
This book, "though professing to be directed against the Church of Rome, 'tis more than manifest," Laud says, "that it was purposely written and divulged against the Bishops and Church of England." For this Bastwick was cited before the High Commission Court, when thirty seven articles were charged against him. He was acquitted of all the charges except one, and that was his maintaining bishops and priests to be the same order of ministers, or, as he expressed it himself, "Impingitur horrendum crimen quod infulis et apicibus jus divinum negaverim, quod Episcopi et Presbyteri paritatem asseruerim." For this he was condemned to pay a fine of £1000, to be excommunicated, to be debarred from the practise of his profession, his book to be burnt, and he himself to pay the costs and remain in prison till he recanted; and "that is," he says, "till domesday in the afternoone."
65.
A divine tragedie lately acted: or a collection of sundry memorable examples of God's judgments upon Sabbath breakers. By William Prynne. London. 1636.
News from Ipswich, discovering certaine late detestable practises of some domineering lordly prelates. By the same. Ipswich. 1636.
The first mentioned book was directed against Noye, the Attorney General, who, it was made out, was visited with a judgment from heaven whilst laughing at Prynne as he stood in the pillory. For writing and publishing these books, the latter of which was styled "a pernicious damnable scurrilous invective and libel," an information was exhibited in the Star Chamber against the author, and on the 14th June, 1637, he was sentenced to lose his ears in the Palace Yard at Westminster, to be fined £5000 to the King, and to perpetual imprisonment. He was also condemned to be stigmatized in the cheeks with two letters, S. and L., for a seditious libeller; and on the 30th June, the sentence was carried out with barbarous cruelty, but at the beginning of the Long Parliament Prynne was liberated.
66.
The Lord's Day, the Sabbath Day, or a Brief Answer to some passages in a late Treatise of the (Lord's) Day: digested dialogue-wise betweene two Divines, A. and B. 1636.
In March, 1637, articles were objected by the Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical against James Hannum, of St. Clement Danes, London, wax chandler, for selling this book, as well as Bastwick's Apologeticus. He was required, by virtue of his oath, to set down how many of the said books he had uttered, vented, or sold, and of whom he had them and to whom he sold them. He was also charged with knowing that these books were never licensed to be printed or sold, but were printed by stealth by some friend of his. Also that one or more of the said books was lately taken in his house.[46]
67.