Plummer's Hall was dissolved, and some of those present imprisoned. Up to this time the points at issue were rather matters of ceremonial, held by scrupulous consciences to involve principles, than any matter of doctrine or even of Church government. But the tendency of the more earnest and thinking Protestants towards Puritanism was constantly on the increase. The middle position occupied by the Church of England gave it of necessity the appearance of a political expedient. Nor did the Queen's language and conduct lead to any other conclusion. She constantly spoke of the Bishops with contempt, threatened to unfrock them at her pleasure, and evidently regarded them as creatures of her will. Their own conduct still further tended to lower the esteem in which they were held. It is evident from the constant complaints of the time that they used their offices very much as a means of making money. Pluralities were abundant, the old exactions of the ecclesiastical courts re-established, and the incomes to the sees forestalled. It does not as yet appear that any distinct assertion of the Divine origin of Episcopacy was made in the English Church. Hooker, whose great book on Ecclesiastical Polity is a defence of the English Church, distinctly rests the authority of the Bishops upon political grounds.

But meanwhile the Puritans, headed by Cartwright, Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, affronted by the persecution brought to bear upon them, and justly indignant at the abuses which existed in the Church, had already raised the claims of Presbyterianism as a Divine institution. Cartwright's "Admonition," published in 1572, contains language which seems to imply that the Church, formed upon a republican model, was superior to the State. The example of a completed Presbytery in Scotland gave evident proof that such a claim was the natural result of the system. The Presbyterian form of Church government had been established in that country in 1592; and by Melville and other leaders of the Kirk the right of interference in political matters, of personal rebuke of the sovereign, and of the exercise of a superior power to that of the temporal monarch, was openly asserted. At the same time the great mass of the Puritans, whatever their theory may have been, accepted the Queen's supremacy, repelled the charge of schism, and acknowledged the lawfulness of continuing in the Established Church.1 There was indeed an extreme section, known by the name of the Brownists, who became afterwards Independents. All parties seem to have agreed that these men were fair objects of persecution. Many

1 Hallam's Const. Hist. i. 213.

1583]

THE PURITANS

569

They are per

Whitgift.

of them were driven from the country, and some of them executed. The republican views held by the advanced Puritans with regard to Church government rendered them particularly distasteful to Elizabeth. During the struggle with the Catholic powers of Europe, she and her ministers were too conscious of the support she derived from them to proceed to extremities. During the archiepiscopacy of Grindal, himself inclined to Puritanism, they enjoyed a period of comparative rest; but upon his death he secuted under was succeeded by Whitgift, a man of a very different temper. In 1583, the Court of High Commission attained its full powers. It consisted of 44 members, 12 of whom were The Court Bishops, and was invested with almost unlimited of High authority on the questions of Church government and discipline. Its proceedings were of a very arbitrary description. A person brought before them was cross-examined with extreme closeness, and compelled to give his answers upon oath, known as the ex officio oath. He was thus, in opposition to the principles of English law, compelled to convict himself. As Elizabeth gradually triumphed over her enemies, she ventured to carry out her own views of uniformity with greater strictness, and Whitgift, backed by the High Commission Court, began a persecution of the Puritans.

Commission.

Growth of

Church party.

But it was not till after the defeat of the Armada that the Church of England asserted its highest pretensions. The support of the Protestants was no longer so necessary. Elizabeth had proved that in times of danger she could rely upon them. They now thwarted her views of her own ecclesiastical supremacy. Moreover, the spirit of the whole Church had become much modified. Forced by the action of Spain to become national, deprived by the High the death of Queen Mary of the hope of a Catholic successor, the Catholics now in large numbers entered the national Church. Believing in their hearts the old doctrines of Rome, it was natural that they should bring out, as far as possible, whatever remained Catholic, and that was much, in the forms and doctrines of the Church of England. Thus was formed the High Church party, and thus sprang up the idea of the Divine right of Episcopacy, which produced such fatal consequences in subsequent reigns. In her tenderness to her newly-converted subjects, less certain of their continued loyalty than of that of the well-tried Puritan party, the Queen allied herself with the High Church. The growth of this party, and the arbitrary conduct of the High Commission Court and the Bishops, naturally drove the Puritans to more organized opposition. In 1590,

under the guidance of Cartwright, associations were formed in different parts of England for the establishment of synods and classes, and all the apparatus of Presbyterianism. Summoned before the High Commission Court, the leaders refused to take the ex officio oath. The case was moved to the Star Chamber. But in spite of the clamours of the Church, the strength of the party was too great to admit of their punishment. They were discharged after having made an apology; the question was taken up in Parliament, but Elizabeth at once interfered, as before related. The war was then carried on in the press. Violent pamphlets were issued against the Church. The most vehement and successful were those signed Martin Mar-Prelate. For long the author evaded all attempts at discovery. A moveable press, from which the pamphlets issued, was shifted from place to place in times of danger. But at last, one Penry, a Welshman, was apprehended, tried as the author of the pamphlets, and executed. But no severity, no arbitrary suppression of public opinion, produced the desired effect. The close of the reign saw Puritanism more widely spread, and more eager in opposition than it had ever been before.

Final increase of Puritanism.

Death of the old ministers. Rise of

young men of action.

Thus, during Burghley's lifetime, the character of the Government, with the exception of such changes as were rendered almost inevitable by the fact that the Queen was now triumphant instead of in danger, continued the same. But it was not without difficulty that this prudent course was adhered to. One by one, shortly after the crisis of 1588, the old ministers, who had created and carried out the cautious policy of the reign, died. Sir Walter Mildmay died in 1589. Early in 1591, Walsingham and Randolph died; in the following year Sir Christopher Hatton, and two years after, Sussex and Lord Grey de Wilton. In their place there arose younger men, eager for a more vigorous exhibition of the strength of England. The chief of these were Raleigh and Essex. They both belonged rather to the courtier than to the statesman class, though Raleigh proved by his writings, as well as by his influence in Parliament, that he was not deficient in the qualities of a statesman. He owed his rise to the personal favour of the Queen. He was made Captain of the Guard, and sought to keep himself in favour by joining largely in the adventurous expeditions against the power of Spain, which were of constant occurrence. Thus, in 1592, he set on foot a great expedition, the command of which, however, he ultimately handed over to Sir Martin Frobisher, and in 1596 he sailed to Guiana, and explored

Raleigh,

1596]

RALEIGH AND ESSEX

571

400 miles of the Orinoco. Essex reached a position of much more importance. Very early he was distinguished by the Essex. favour of the Queen. Though only just of age at the time

of the Armada, he was made Captain-General of the cavalry, under Leicester, and upon that nobleman's death succeeded to much of his personal influence with Elizabeth. His impetuous character made him despise the cautious policy of Burghley. He was unable to supplant that minister, whose influence was constantly paramount in all matters of real importance; but he hoped, no doubt, to succeed him as chief adviser to the Crown, to the exclusion of Robert Cecil, Burghley's son, who, trained in the prudent diplomacy of his father, became his chief rival. A constant advocate for war, it was with difficulty he could be made to adapt himself to the cautious policy of the Queen. Her favour, however, secured him the highest commands. To him were intrusted the armies sent to support Henry IV. The forced inactivity in which he was kept ill suited his temperament, nor did the Queen like his lengthened absence from her. In the following year he was recalled, without having had any opportunity of distinguishing himself. But some years after, in 1596, his warlike policy, backed as it was by Howard, the Lord-Admiral, was for a moment triumphant. In company with the Admiral he was sent in command of an expedition against Spain. The Spanish fleet was beaten and destroyed in the harbour of Cadiz; Essex rapidly landed his troops and reduced the town. But he was overruled when he wished to advance further into the heart of Spain; and, after two other slight successes, the expedition returned to England. As it was, it inflicted the greatest blow which Philip had yet received, and roused him to adopt a firmer line of action in the following years. On his return, Essex was not received with the enthusiasm he expected. The Cecils charged him with wilful extravagance, a point on which the Queen always felt strongly. For some time he was in disgrace, but ultimately succeeded in establishing his innocence, and was victorious over the Cecils. In the following year he was again sent to Spain, where Philip was preparing to revenge the loss of Cadiz. The weather prevented him from winning any marked success. He reached the Azores, and took several places, but missed the great Plate fleet, which was his special object; on his return, he was again ill received and disgraced. He was filled with anger, too, at events which had taken place during his absence. The Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster, which he had desired for a friend of his own, had been given to his rival, Robert Cecil. The Lord-Admiral had

been raised to the rank of Earl of Nottingham, especially for his services at Cadiz, which Essex regarded as his own. This promotion, which gave Howard the precedence, induced Essex to withdraw in anger from the Court, and it was only on being created Earl Marshal, and thus regaining his precedence, that he consented to. be appeased and again to appear at Court. It was a temporary alliance with the Cecils which gained him this promotion; his friendship was necessary for them during Robert Cecil's absence from England in the negotiation which preceded the Peace of Vervins,

He succeeds in continuing war with Spain.

Loses the favour of the Queen.

but the truce was of short duration. Their policies were too distinct to admit of cordial friendship, and Essex used all his influence successfully to thwart them in their desire of establishing a peace with Spain. In 1598, his petulance in the Council, when the question of the employment of a deputy for Ireland was brought forward, so roused the anger of the Queen, that

Triumph of the Cecils,

National greatness.

she struck him. The quarrel, rather to the surprise of the world, was again made up; but she had become weary of his self-willed ways, and upon the death of Burghley, in 1598, it was to Robert Cecil, and not to him, that the chief power fell. Meanwhile, in the midst of intrigues for power at home, and of a not very dignified policy abroad, the nation had been sweeping on in a course of ever-increasing triumph. The wealth of the country, fostered by the lengthened freedom from foreign invasion and by the comparative lightness of the taxation, had been constantly on the increase. The decline of Spain, the renewed energy of England in maritime affairs, had opened new markets and increased commerce. The discovery of America had been gradually continued, principally by the efforts to discover the North-Western Passage. Frobisher had reached Labrador, Drake had twice circumnavigated the globe. Raleigh had founded a settlement in America, which, though at first unsuccessful, afterwards became the great province of Virginia. Great trading companies sprang into existence. In 1581, the Turkey Company was incorporated, and before the close of the reign, in 1600, the trade with the East Indies was so great as to authorize the establishment of the first East India Company. With this great increase of commercial wealth, there sprang up a renewal of the same abuses that marked the reign of Henry VIII. Again land began to fall into the hands of the mercantile class; again arable land was changed into pasture, and small holdings were thrown into large farms. This inevitable change, ultimately perhaps advantageous, was at

Continuation of economic changes.