for the Queen as might have been expected from his wisdom and breeding, and often crossed her pretenses and desires with more rudeness than was natural to him. Yet he was impertinently solicitous to know what her majesty said of him in private, and what resentments she had towards him. And when by some confidants (who had their ends upon him from those offices) he was informed of some bitter expressions fallen from her majesty, he was so exceedingly afflicted and tormented with the sense of it that, sometimes by passionate complaints and representations to the King, sometimes by more dutiful addresses and expostulations with the Queen in bewailing his misfortunes, he frequently exposed himself, and left his condition worse than it was before: and the éclaircissement commonly ended in the discovery of the persons from whom he had received his most secret intelligence.

He quickly lost the character of a bold, stout, and magnanimous man, which he had been long reputed to be in worse times; and, in his most prosperous season, fell under the reproach of being a man of big looks and of a mean and abject spirit.

ARCHBISHOP WILLIAMS.

The bishops, who were in this manner driven and kept from the House of Peers and not very secure in their own, could not have the patience to attend the dissolution of this storm, which in wisdom they ought to have done; but considering right and reason too abstractly, and what in justice was due, not what in prudence was to be expected, suffered themselves implicitly to be guided by the archbishop of York (who was of a proud, restless, overweening spirit) to such an act of indiscretion and disadvantage to themselves, that all their enemies could not have brought upon them. This bishop, as is said, was a man of very imperious and fiery temper, Dr. Williams, who had been Keeper of the Great Seal of England in the time of King James, and bishop of Lincoln. After his removal from that church he had lived splendidly in his diocese, and made himself very popular amongst those who had no reverence for the Court, of which he would frequently, and in the presence of many, speak with too much freedom, and tell many stories of things and persons upon his own former experience; in which being a man of great pride and vanity, he did not always confine himself to a precise veracity, and did

often presume in those unwary discourses to mention the person of the King with too little reverence. He did affect to be thought an enemy to the archbishop of Canterbury, whose person he seemed exceedingly to contemn; and to be much displeased with those ceremonies and innovations, as they were then called, which were countenanced by the other; and had himself written and published in his own name, and by his own authority, a book against the using those ceremonies, in which there was much good learning and too little gravity for a bishop. His passion and his levity gave every day great advantages to those who did not love him; and he provoked too many, not to have those advantages made use of: so that, after several informations against him in the Star Chamber, he was sentenced for no less crimes than for perjury and subordination of perjury, and fined in a great sum of money to the King, and committed prisoner to the Tower, without the pity or compassion of any but those who, out of hatred to the government, were sorry that they were without so useful a champion; for he appeared to be a man of a very corrupt nature, whose passions could have transported him into the most unjustifiable actions.

He had a faculty of making relations of things done in his own presence, and discourses made to himself or in his own hearing, with all the circumstances of answers and replies, and upon arguments of great moment; all which upon examination were still found to have nothing in them that was real, but to be the pure effect of his own invention. After he was sentenced in the Star Chamber, some of his friends resorted to him to lament and condole with him for his misfortune; and some of them seemed to wonder that, in an affair of such a nature, he had not found means to have made some submission and composition that might have prevented the public hearing, which proved so much to his prejudice in point of reputation as well as profit. He answered them, with all the formality imaginable, that "they had reason indeed to wonder at him upon the event; but when they should know how he had governed himself he believed they would cease to think him worthy of blame." And then related to them that "as soon as publication had passed in his cause, and the books were taken out, he had desired his counsel (who were all able men, and some of them very eminent) in the vacation time, and they at most leisure, to meet together, and carefully to look over and peruse all the evidence that was

taken on both sides; and that then they would all attend him such a morning, which he appointed upon their consent, at his own house at Westminster: that they came at the time appointed, and, being then shut up in a room together, he asked them whether they had sufficiently perused all the books, and were thoroughly informed of his case? To which they all answered that they had not only read them all over together, but had severally, every man by himself, perused (them) again, and they believed they were all well informed of the whole. That he then told them, he had desired this conference with them not only as his counsel, by whose opinion he meant to govern himself, but as his particular friends, who, he was sure, would give him their best advice, and persuade him to do everything as they would do themselves if they were in his condition. That he was now offered to make his peace at Court, by such an humble submission to the King, as he was most inclined and ready to make, and which he would make the next day after his cause was heard, though he should be declared to be innocent, of which he could make no doubt; but that which troubled him for the present was that the infamousness of the charge against him, which had been often exposed and enlarged upon in several motions, had been so much taken notice of through the kingdom that it could not consist with his honor to divert the hearing, which would be imputed to his want of confidence in his innocence, since men did not suspect his courage if he durst rely upon the other; but that he was resolved, as he said before, the next day after he should be vindicated from those odious aspersions, he would cast himself at the King's feet, with all the humility and submission which the most guilty man could make profession of. It was in this point he desired their advice, to which he would, without adhering to his own inclination, entirely conform himself; and therefore desired them, singly in order, to give him their advice." He repeated the several and distinct discourse every man had made, in which he was so punctual that he applied those phrases and expressions and manner of speech to the several men which they were all taken notice of frequently to use; as many men have some peculiar words in discourse, which they are most delighted with or by custom most addicted to; and in conclusion, that "they were unanimous in their judgments, that he could not, with the preservation of his honor and the opinion of his integrity, decline the public hearing; where he must be unquestionably declared

innocent, there being no crime or misdemeanor proved against him in such a manner as could make him liable to censure: they all commended his resolution of submitting to the King as soon as he had made his innocence to appear, and they all advised him to pursue that method. This," he said, "had swayed him, and made him decline the other expedient that had been proposed to him."

This relation wrought upon those to whom it was made, to raise a prejudice in them against the justice of the cause, or the reputation of the counsel, as they were most inclined; whereas there was not indeed the least shadow of truth in the whole relation, except that there was such a meeting and conference as was mentioned, and which had been consented to by the bishop upon the joint desire and importunity of all the counsel; who at that conference unanimously advised and desired him "to use all the means and friends he could that the cause might not be brought to hearing; but that he should purchase his peace at any price, for that, if it were heard, he would be sentenced very grievously, and that there were many things proved against him which would so much reflect upon his honor and reputation, and the more for being a bishop, that all his friends would abandon him, and be ever after ashamed to appear on his behalf." Which advice, with great passion and reproaches upon the several persons for their presumption and ignorance in matters so much above them, he utterly and scornfully rejected. Nor indeed was it possible at that time for him to have made his peace; for though upon some former addresses and importunity on his behalf by some persons of power and place in the Court, in which the Queen herself had endeavored to have done him good offices, the King was inclined to have saved him, being a bishop, from the infamy he must undergo by a public trial, yet the bishop's vanity had, in those conjunctures, so far transported him that he had done all he could to have it insinuated that the Court was ashamed of what they had done, and had prevailed with some of his powerful friends to persuade him to that composition: upon which the King would never hear more any person who moved on his behalf.

It had been once mentioned to him, whether by authority or no was not known, that his peace should be made if he would resign his bishopric and deanery of Westminster (for he held that in commendum) and take a good bishopric in Ireland; which he positively refused, and said, "he had much to do to

defend himself against the archbishop here: but if he were in Ireland, there was a man " (meaning the earl of Strafford)" who would cut off his head within one month."

This bishop had been for some years in the Tower, by the sentence of the Star Chamber, before this Parliament met, when the lords who were the most active and powerful presently resolved to have him at liberty. Some had much kindness for him, not only as a known enemy to the archbishop of Canterbury, but as a supporter of those opinions and those persons which were against the Church itself. And he was no sooner at liberty and brought in (to) the House, but he defended and seconded the Lord Say when he made an invective, with all the malice and bitterness imaginable, against the archbishop, then in prison; and when he had concluded, that bishop said that "he had long known that noble lord, and had always believed him to be as well affected to the Church as himself;" and so he continued to make all his address to that lord and those of the same party. Being now in full liberty, and in some credit and reputation, he applied himself to the King, and made all possible professions of duty to his majesty and zeal to the Church, protesting to have a perfect detestation of those persons who appeared to have no affection or duty towards his majesty and all evil intentions against the religion established; and that the civilities he had expressed towards them was only out of gratitude for the good will they had shown to him, and especially that he might the better promote his majesty's service. And it being his turn shortly after, as dean of Westminster, to preach before the King, he took occasion to speak of the factions in religion; and mentioning the Presbyterian, he said, "it was a government only fit for tailors and shoemakers and the like, and not for noblemen and gentlemen;" which gave great scandal and offense to his great patrons, to whom he easily reconciled himself, by making them as merry with some sharp sayings of the Court, and by performing more substantial offices for them.

THE ATTEMPT ON THE FIVE MEMBERS.

In the afternoon of a day when the two Houses sat, Harbert, the King's Attorney, informed the House of Peers that he had somewhat to say to them from the King; and thereupon, having a paper in his hand, he said that the King commanded