“An” Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, Chiefly of England

UPON the death of king James, his only son Charles was, CHARLES according to custom, proclaimed at Theobalds, in London, and elsewhere. The first thing we meet with in reference to the Church, is the king's regulation of the chaplains in ordinary. A. D. 1625. Their number was retrenched, and their time of officiating ascertained. And to make the regulation more perfect, Laud, bishop of St. David's, was commanded to bring in a list of the most eminent divines; and to distinguish their persuasions by the two capitals O. and P., the first standing for Orthodox, and the other for Puritan.

And now the parliament and convocation being shortly to meet, Laud was directed by his majesty to consult the learned bishop Andrews upon the juncture: and to take his advice what was fit to be debated upon the subject of religion, especially with reference to the five points settled at Dort.

The marriage agreed in the late reign between his present majesty and the French king's sister, was solemnized by proxy at Paris, May the 1st, old style. And on the seventh of this month, king James was interred at Westminster in Henry VII.'s chapel. The king receiving advice of his queen's being The queen embarked at Boulogne, met her at Dover, and conveyed her to arrives at Dover, and London. But here Fuller mistakes in relating a chapel was is conveyed prepared for her in Somerset-house, with a convent of Capu- to London. by the king chin friars for, first, the chapel then ready was not prepared

VOL. VIII.

A mistake in Fuller rectified.

ABBOT, for her, but the lady Infanta; it was built in the king's house Abp. Cant. at St. James's, when the treaty with Spain was likely to succeed. Secondly, the articles of marriage make no mention of the Capuchin friars, as Fuller reports. The priests who came over with the queen were, by agreement, to be all Oratorians, this order being likely to prove more inoffensive to the English, as having given them no provocation. And to lay this matter together, though happening at some distance of time, these Oratorians being sent back to France in the year 1626, the Capuchins under father Joseph supplied their place. This however did not happen till after the rupture with France, the expedition at the isle of Rhé, and the loss of Rochelle. But some time after the peace between England and France, the queen prevailed the Capuchins might have leave to come over: upon this some lodgings were fitted for them in Somerset-house, and Hist. p. 199, a chapel built there for her majesty's devotions.

Heylin,
Examen

The parliament meets

at Westminster.

Montague summoned to appear before the

commons.

734.

On the 18th of June the parliament met at Westminster. The commons' first business was addressing the king with a list of grievances, to the most of which a satisfactory answer was returned. The lower house proceeded to concern themselves with matters of religion, and summoned Montague before them. Being brought to the bar, the speaker told him it was the pleasure of the house the censure of his books should be postponed some time; that in the interim he should be committed to the custody of the serjeant; and afterwards they obliged him to give the security of 2000l. for his appearance. Montague being the king's chaplain, his majesty was displeased with the proceedings of the commons, and looked on it as an unprecedented stretch of jurisdiction: and now Laud being apprehensive the Reformation might suffer if controversies in religion were determined in the last instance by the laity, applied to the duke of Buckingham to engage his majesty in favour of Montague. Neither was this divine wanting to do his own part in his defence: to this purpose he wrote to the duke of Buckingham. He entreats this great minister to report to his majesty the hardships put upon him by the commons. That they had no authority to prosecute his person or censure his book: that what he had written was published by the late king's order, and authorized by his present majesty. After this he makes a bold declaration, in case he did not give a solid and full answer to every

"that

article

objected from his book, he would willingly be given up to the CHARLES pleasure of his enemies, and not importune his majesty or his grace for any protection."

This application was seconded some few days after by a letter of three bishops to the duke of Buckingham; the words are these:

"MAY IT PLEASE YOUR GRACE,

Cabbala,

P. 110.

Three

bishops write

"We are bold to be suitors to you, in the behalf of the Church in his behalf of England, and a poor member of it, Mr. Montague, at this to the duke of Buckingtime not a little distressed. We are not strangers to his per- ham. son, but it is the cause which we are bound to be tender of.

"The cause we conceive (under correction of better judgment) concerns the Church of England merely; for that Church, when it was reformed from the superstitious opinions broached or maintained by the Church of Rome, refused the apparent and dangerous errors, and would not be too busy with every particular school point. The cause why she held this moderation was, because she could not be able to preserve any unity amongst Christians, if men were forced to subscribe to curious particulars disputed in schools.

Now, may it please your grace, the opinions which at this time trouble many men in the late book of Mr. Montague, are some of them such as are expressly the resolved doctrine of the Church of England, and those he is bound to maintain : some of them such as are fit only for schools, and to be left at more liberty for learned men to abound in their own sense, so they keep themselves peaceable and distract not the Church. And therefore to make any man subscribe to school opinions may justly seem hard in the Church of Christ, and was one great fault of the council of Trent. And to affright them from those opinions in which they have (as they are bound) subscribed to the Church, as it is worse in itself, so it may be the mother of greater danger'.

May it please your grace farther to consider, that when the clergy submitted themselves, in the time of Henry VIII., the submission was so, that if any difference, doctrinal or other, fell in the Church, the king and the bishops were to be judges of it in a national synod or convocation, the king first giving leave under his broad seal to handle the points in difference.

1 Vide Blackburne's Confessional.

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“An” Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, Chiefly of England ..., Volume 8