presented a petition for a redress of ecclesiastical grievances; and a decent respect for the party in which he had been bred, joined to a desire of displaying his talents for theological debate, induced him to appoint a conference at Hampton

court.

The conference, held in January, 1604, was distinguished on the part of the king by a strenuous vindication of the church of England. Refusing to discuss the question of its power in things indifferent, he substituted authority for argument, and, where he could not produce conviction, demanded obedience: "I will have none of that liberty as to ceremonies; I will have one doctrine, one discipline, one religion in substance and in ceremony. Never speak more to that point, how far you are bound to obey."

The Puritans desired permission occasionally to assemble, and at their meetings to have the liberty of free discussions; but the king interrupted their petition: "You are aiming at a Scot's presbytery, which agrees with monarchy as well as God and the devil. Then Jack and Tom and Will and Dick shall meet, and at their pleasure censure me and my council, and all our proceedings. Then Will shall stand up and say, It must be thus; then Dick shall reply and say, Nay, marry, but we will have it thus; and, therefore, here I must once more reiterate my former speech, and say, The king forbids." Turning to the bishops, he avowed his belief that the hierarchy was the firmest supporter of the throne. Of the Puritans, he added: "I will make them conform, or I will harry them out of the land, or else worse," "only hang them; that's all."

On the last day of the conference, the king defended the necessity of subscription, concluding that, "if any would not be quiet and show their obedience, they were worthy to be hanged." He approved the high commission and inquisitorial oaths, despotic authority and its instruments. A few alterations in the Book of Common Prayer were the only reforms which the conference effected. It was determined that a time should be set, within which all should conform, or be removed. He had insulted the Puritans with vulgar rudeness and indecorous jests, and had talked much Latin; a part of the

time in the presence of the nobility of Scotland and England. "Your majesty speaks by the special assistance of God's spirit," said the aged Whitgift, just six weeks before his death. Bishop Bancroft, on his knees, exclaimed that his heart melted for joy, "because God had given England such a king as, since Christ's time, has not been ;" and, in a foolish letter, James boasted that "he had soundly peppered off the Puritans."

In the parliament which assembled in 1604, the party for the reform of the church asserted their liberties with such tenacity and vigor that King James began to hate them as embittering royalty itself. "I had rather live like a hermit in the forest," he writes, "than be a king over such a people as the pack of Puritans are that overrule the lower house." "The will of man or angel cannot devise a pleasing answer to their propositions, except I should pull the crown not only from my own head, but also from the head of all those that shall succeed unto me, and lay it down at their feet." At the opening of the session, he had offered "to meet the Catholics in the midway;" while he added that "the sect of Puritans is insufferable in any well-governed commonwealth." At the next session of parliament he declared the Roman Catholics to be faithful subjects, but the Puritans worthy of fire for their opinions. Against the latter he inveighed bitterly in council, saying "that the revolt in the Low Countries began for matters of religion, and so did all the troubles in Scotland; that his mother and he, from their cradles, had been haunted with a Puritan devil, which he feared would not leave him to his grave; and that he would hazard his crown but he would suppress those malicious spirits."

The convocation of the clergy were very ready to decree against obstinate Puritans excommunication and all its consequences. Bancroft, the successor of Whitgift, required conformity with unrelenting rigor; King James issued a proclamation of equal severity; and it is asserted, perhaps with exaggeration, yet by those who had opportunities of judging rightly, that in the year 1604 alone three hundred Puritan ministers were silenced, imprisoned, or exiled. The oppressed resisted the surplice, not as a mere vestment, but as the sym

bol of a priest, ordained by a bishop, imposed upon a church, and teaching by authority. The clergy proceeded with a consistent disregard of the national liberties. The importation of foreign books was impeded, and a severe censorship of the press was exercised by the bishops. The convocation of 1606, in a series of canons, asserted the superiority of the king to the parliament and the laws, and admitted no exception to the duty of passive obedience. The English separatists and non-conformists became the sole protectors of the system which gave to England its distinguishing glory. "The stern and exasperated Puritans," writes Hallam, "were the depositaries of the sacred fire of liberty." "So absolute was the authority of the crown," said Hume, "that the precious spark of liberty had been kindled and was preserved by the Puritans alone; and it was to this sect that the English owe the whole freedom of their constitution." The lines of the contending parties were sharply drawn. Immediate success was obtained by the established authority; but the contest was to be transmitted to another continent. The interests of human freedom were at issue on the contest.

In the year of this convocation, "a poor people" in the north of England, in towns and villages of Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, and the borders of Yorkshire, in and near Scrooby, had "become enlightened by the word of God." "Presently they were both scoffed and scorned by the profane multitude; and their ministers, urged by the yoke of subscription," were, by the increase of troubles, led "to see further," that not only "the beggarly ceremonies were monuments of idolatry," but "that the lordly power of the prelates ought not to be submitted to." Many of them, therefore, "whose hearts the Lord had touched with heavenly zeal for his truth," resolved, "whatever it might cost them, to shake off the antiChristian bondage, and, as the Lord's free people, to join themselves by a covenant into a church estate in the fellowship of the gospel."

"The gospel is every man's right; and it is not to be endured that any one should be kept therefrom. But the evangel is an open doctrine; it is bound to no place, and moves along freely under heaven, like the star, which ran in the sky

to show the wizards from the east where Christ was born. Do not dispute with the prince for place. Let the community choose their own pastor, and support him out of their own estates. If the prince will not suffer it, let the pastor flee into another land, and let those go with him who will, as Christ teaches." Such was the counsel of Luther, on reading "the twelve articles" of the insurgent peasants of Suabia. What Luther advised, what Calvin planned, was carried into effect by this rural community of Englishmen.

The reformed church chose for one of their ministers John Robinson, "a man not easily to be paralleled," "of a most learned, polished, and modest spirit." Their ruling elder was William Brewster, who "was their special stay and help." They were beset and watched night and day by the agents of prelacy. For about a year they kept their meetings every sabbath in one place or another; exercising the worship of God among themselves, notwithstanding all the diligence and malice of their adversaries, till the peaceful members of "the poor persecuted flock of Christ," despairing of rest in England, resolved to go into Holland, "where, they heard, was freedom of religion for all men."

The departure from England was effected with much suffering and hazard. The first attempt, in 1607, was prevented; but the magistrates checked the ferocity of the subordinate officers; and, after a month's arrest of the whole company, seven only of the principal men were detained a little longer in prison.

The next spring the design was renewed. An unfrequented heath in Lincolnshire, near the mouth of the Humber, was the place of secret meeting. Just as a boat was bearing a part of the emigrants to their ship, a company of horsemen appeared in pursuit, and seized on the helpless women and children who had not yet adventured on the surf. "Pitiful it was to see the heavy case of these poor women in distress; what weeping and crying on every side." But, when they were apprehended, it seemed impossible to punish and imprison wives and children for no other crime than that they would not part from their husbands and fathers. They could not be sent home, for "they had no homes to go to;" so that, at last,

the magistrates were "glad to be rid of them on any terms," though, in the mean time, they, poor souls, endured misery enough." Such was the flight of Robinson and Brewster and their followers from the land of their fathers.

Their arrival in Amsterdam, in 1608, was but the beginning of their wanderings. "They knew they were PILGRIMS, and looked not much on those things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dearest country, and quieted their spirits." In 1609, removing to Leyden," they saw poverty coming on them like an armed man;" but, being "careful to keep their word, and painful and diligent in their callings," they attained "a comfortable condition, grew in the gifts and grace of the spirit of God, and lived together in peace and love and holiness." "Never," said the magistrates of the city, "never did we have any suit or accusation against any of them;" and, but for fear of offence to King James, they would have met with public favor. "Many came there from different parts of England, so as they grew a great congregation." "Such was the humble zeal and fervent love of this people toward God and his ways, and their single-heartedness and sincere affection one toward another," that they seemed to come surpassingly near "the primitive pattern of the first churches." A clear and well-written apology of their discipline was published by Robinson, who, in the controversy on free-will, as the champion of orthodoxy, "begar. to be terrible to the Arminians," and disputed in the university with such power that, as his friends assert, "the truth had a famous victory."

The career of maritime discovery had, meantime, been pursued with intrepidity and rewarded with success. The voyages of Gosnold, Waymouth, Smith, and Hudson; the enterprise of Raleigh, Delaware, and Gorges; the compilations of Eden, Willes, and Hakluyt-had filled the commercial world with wonder; Calvinists of the French church had sought, though vainly, to plant themselves in Brazil, in Carolina, and, with De Monts, in Acadia; while weighty reasons, often and seriously discussed, inclined the pilgrims to change their abode. They had been bred to the pursuits of husbandry, and in Holland they were compelled to learn mechanical trades; Brewster became a teacher of English and a printer; Bradford,