Hampton Court Conference.

To the millenary petition, the king thought it advisable to pretend some regard. He, therefore, appointed "a Conference," to be held at Hampton Court, between the Bishops and the Puritans. The disputants, on both sides, were designated by the king; who showed his impartiality, and his desire for a fair discussion of the points at issue, by nominating "nine bishops, and about as many dignitaries," to defend the Hierarchy; and four Puritan divines to defend the petitioners. The Conference, or rather the farce, was not public; but was carried on in "the drawing room within the privy chamber, at Hampton Court." * It began on Saturday, January 14th, 1604, with a private interview between the king and his bishops and counsellors; in which the preliminaries of the intended attack upon the Puritans were arranged. On Monday, his Majesty, surrounded by his privy counsellors and nobles, began to exhibit his "kingcraft" by brow-beating and abusing the Puritan advocates; being himself the chief actor in the play.

The third day of the "farcical Conference," began with another private interview between the king and his nobility and the bishops, the Puritans being excluded. In this interview the king defended and praised the High-Commission

*

Hampton Court is the name of a palace built by Cardinal Wolsey, in Hampton, about twelve miles from London, on the river Thames. Its buildings, gardens, and parks, are said to occupy an area of about four miles. The Cardinal furnished it sumptuously; and, among other articles, with 280 silk beds for the accoinmodation of strangers. It has long been a royal palace. The reader will find a minute, and somewhat interesting account of Hampton and its Court-accompanied by beautiful views of the palace, etc.-in Trotter's "Views in the Invirons of London."

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Court, and the subscription to all the Archbishop's Articles and to the Common Prayer Book, and the infamous ex officio oath; saying, "if any, after things are well ordered, will not be quiet and show his obedience, the church were better without him, and he were worthy to be hanged." It was under the delirium of joy produced by this most Christian and kingly speech, that Archbishop Whitgift, “ with a sugared bait, (which princes are apt enough to swallow,)" exclaimed: "Undoubtedly your majesty speaks by the special assistance of God's spirit !"* and Dr. Bancroft, on his knees protested: "My heart melteth for joy, that Almighty God, of his singular mercy, has given us such a king, as since Christ's time hath not been!" Such were the fulsome flatteries of these clerical dignitaries; these were the silken cords by which they bound the king to the Hierarchy.

After this private acting had been carried on for a while, the Puritan divines were called in to receive an additional portion of contemptuous abuse from the lips of this "Solomon of the age." They were then dismissed with the following gentle words: "If this be all your party hath to say, I will make them conform themselves, or else I will hurrie them out of the kingdom, or else do worse: ONLY HANG THEM, THAT'S ALL." Thus ended the Hampton Court Conference. It was designed to answer very much the same purpose as was the pretended disputation, in the days of Queen Mary, between the Oxford doctors, and Archbishop Cranmer and

* See Wilson's Life and Reign of James I. p. 665. Howell, who, I believe, was an eye and ear witness of the Conference, says in reference to this speech of Whitgift: "I wist not what they mean; but the spirit was rather foul-mouthed."-Lingard, His. Eng. Vol. IX. p. 26. note.

† See Neal, II. Chap. 1. pp, 35-46; Prince, pp. 102-107; Hanbury, Chaps. 6 and 7.

poor old Latimer,-so sick that he could scarcely hold up his head. Of the two, the Oxford Conference was the fairer. "In the accounts that we read of this meeting we are alternately struck with wonder at the indecent and partial behaviour of the king, and the abject baseness of the bishops, mixed, according to the custom of such natures, with insolence towards their opponents."

The Hampton Court Conference, as it was called, allowed the king and his bishops to say, that the Puritans had been heard in defence of their claims, and had been vanquished in argument. And, though the four advocates were not the chosen representatives of the Puritan party, and complained loudly that they were very unfairly used in the Conference, still the whole body were counted as a vanquished

*

Hallam, Const. His. of Eng. Vol. I. p. 404.

The modest king, in giving an account of this Conference, boasted-"That he had soundly peppered off the Puritans ;" and that they had so fled him in argument, as would have been disgraceful in school-boys even. Dr. John Reynolds was one of these "peppered Puritans;" styled by Calamy, "the wonder of the age for learning;" and by Hallam, "nearly, if not altogether, the most learned man in England."

Hume shrewdly remarks: "The Puritans were here so unreasonable, as to complain of a partial and unfair management of the dispute; as if the search after truth were, in any degree, the object of such conferences." ** Vol. III. p. 278. Wilson, de

scribing this Conference, says, that "They [the Puritan divines] disputed against the cross in baptism, the ring in marriage, the surplice, the oath ex officio, and other things that stuck with them; which they had hoped to get all purged away, because the king was of a northern constitution, where no such things were practised not yet having felt the king's pulse, whom the southern air of the bishops' breaths had so wrought upon, that he himself an swers most of their demands; sometimes gently, applying lenitives, when he found ingenuity, (for he was learned and eloquent,) [at] other times corrosives, telling them, these oppositions pro

enemy; and were doomed to corresponding treatment. And what was still worse, the poor Separatists, who were not considered of sufficient importance to be allowed an advocate in this august Conference, or even to be spectators of its proceedings, were destined to share fully in all the evils with which the non-conformists were to be visited; and by which they were to be "hurried out of the kingdom.”

This conference was the prelude to a royal proclamation, issued March 5, 1604, declaring that "the same religion, with Common Prayer, and Episcopal jurisdiction, shall fully and only be publicly exercised, in all respects, as in the reign of queen Elizabeth, without hope of toleration of any other."*

On the 20th of the same month, the Convocation of the clergy, under the presidency of the violent Bancroft-Whitgift having died on the 29th of February—met, and drew up a book of 141 Canons; which, with the king's proclamation, completed the machinery for hurrying the Puritans out of the kingdom. The canons were confirmed by letters patent from the king, and became the law of the realm June 25th, 1604.

These canons denounced excommunication "ipso facto" -for the very act-after this sort: "Whosoever shall affirm, that the Church of England by law established, is not a true and apostolical church, let him be excommunicated ipso facto, and not restored only by the archbishop, after his repentance and public revocation of his wicked error." -The same punishment was denounced on whomsoever should affirm-" that the form of God's worship contained

:

ceeded more from stubbornness in opinion, than tenderness of conscience and so, betwixt his arguments and kingly authority, menaced them to a conformity, which proved a way of silencing them for the present; and some of them were content to acquiesce for the future."-Life of James 1. p. 665.

* Howes, in Prince; Neal, II. p. 47.

in the Book of Common Prayer ** containeth any thing in it that is repugnant to the Scriptures:"_" that any of the thirty-nine articles of the church ** are in any part superstitious or erroneous, or such as he may not with a good conscience subscribe to :"that the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England are wicked, anti-christian, superstitious, or such as, being commanded by lawful authority, good men may not with a good conscience approve, use, or, as occasion requires, subscribe :" that "shall affirm the government of the Church of England, by archbishops, bishops, deans, and archdeacons, and the rest that bear office in the same, is anti-christian, or repugnant to the Word of God:" "that the form or manner of making and conse. crating bishops, priests, or deacons, contains any thing repugnant to the Word of God” ** :-or, "shall separate from the communion of the Church of England or combine together in a new brotherhood” ** :-or shall affirm that there are within this realm, other meetings, assemblies, or congregations of the king's born subjects, than such as are established by law, that may rightly challenge to themselves the name of true and lawful churches." ** For each of these several offences, excommunication, with all its civil and ecclesiastical terrors, was pronounced; and the offender was not to be restored" but only by the archbishop, after his repentance and public revocation of his wicked er

ror." *

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**

Such were some of the canons which were forged by this Convocation; and ratified, confirmed, and enforced, by the tyrannical rulers of church and state during this entire reign. These were the laws by which multitudes of pious menministers and laymen-were fined and imprisoned in their native land, and driven out of the kingdom to die in foreign climes.

* Neal, II. pp. 53-62; Hanbury, pp. 120-123.