lead to mistakes in opinions respecting dates formed upon them.

A second order which suggests itself is that of subjects; but this it would be difficult to accomplish, and if it were done it would only mince the matter into unintelligible or uninteresting scraps, and on the whole convey an indistinct, and in some degree incorrect, impression. For, in fact, there is only one great subject; or, to speak more strictly, it is to what I consider as the great subject of the books, and the great object of the writers, that I wish to call the attention of the reader. I mean the promotion of a revolution in the government of England by the dethronement of Queen Mary. As to the subdivisions which it may be right to make in considering this point, I hope to speak hereafter.

ESSAY VI.

PURITAN POLITICS. No. II.

RELATING TO THE DUTY OF SUBJECTS TO THEIR RULERS GENERALLY.

KNOX-GOODMAN- -WHITTINGHAM-KETHE-BECON-THE

SUPPLICACYON-BRADFORD-PONET.

It has been already stated, that a great object of the books which were written and sent over to this country by the protestant exiles, was to promote a revolution in the English Government by the dethronement of Queen Mary. The only difficulty in proving this, is that which arises from having to make a selection amidst a superabundance of evidence.

It is true, that much which would have increased that difficulty is lost. Many of the worst productions of that period the worst, not only in a moral and religious point of view, but as being the most prejudicial, passing from hand to hand or from mouth to mouth, amongst the worst people, and such as were most easily excited to the worst practices-the profane ballad, that regaled the devotees of

6

the ale-house; the seditious broadside, scattered in the streets by unseen hands; the interlude, that amused a simple and untaught audience with blasphemous ribaldry concerning the holiest and most sacred mysteries of religion-these are now seldom to be met with. But for our purpose the loss is the less to be regretted, because they mostly lie open to the objection, that as there probably never was a time when their authorship could be certainly fixed, so it is altogether impossible at this distance of time to attempt anything of the kind; and, also, that for anything we can prove, these very abominations may have been forged by the enemies of the puritans for the express purpose of bringing them into trouble. I lay no stress, therefore, on works of this description, though it may, on some occasions, be worth while, for the sake of illustration, to refer to them'. But I will beg the reader to bear in mind, that however obscure our intelligence respecting them may be, these things were in existence, and in active operation, while I quit them to speak, as Doctor (afterwards Archbishop) Parker did to the Lord Keeper Bacon, of certain books, "that went then ' about London, being printed and spread abroad, and their

was

This is not the place to enter into details on a very curious subject, but it may be to the purpose to refer to the case of Bartlet Green, whose history occupies a considerable space in Fox's Martyrology. (Vol. VII. p. 732. 8vo Ed.) He was a young Templar, the ground of whose apprehension Fox states very obscurely. "The cause hereof," he says, 'a letter which Green did write unto the said Goodman, containing as 'well the report of certain Demands or Questions, which were cast 'abroad in London, (as appeareth hereafter in a letter of his own pen'ning)," &c. Green, in the letter thus referred to, in which he gives an account of his having been examined as to the cause of his imprisonment, says, "I said that the occasion of mine apprehension was a letter which I wrote to one Christopher Goodman, wherein (certifying him of such news as happened here) among the rest, I wrote that there were certain printed papers of questions scattered abroad. Whereupon, [was this quite all?] being suspected to be privy unto the devising or publishing of the same, I was committed to the Fleet," &c. Perhaps, however, the reader may hereafter come to doubt whether the very circumstance of correspondence with one Christopher Goodman was not enough to raise some suspicion of any man, and whether the "whereupon" might not admit of considerable expansion and illustration. Unfortunately for our curiosity, Bishop Bonner waived that matter altogether on the ground the prisoner was sent to him only on account of heresy spoken or written since his committal to the Fleet. Whether Green knew more or less of these Questions, how much do we know? I am not aware of any testimony to their existence, but this obscure notice.

66

At which, said

'authors ministers of good estimation. 'Parker, exhorrui cum ista legerem. Adding, if such prin'ciples be spread into men's heads, as now they be framed, 'and referred to the judgment of the subject to discuss 'what is tyranny, and to discern whether his prince, his 'landlord, his master, is a tyrant by his own fancy and 'collection supposed; what Lord of the Council shall ride 'quietly-minded in the streets among desperate beasts? 'what minister shall be sure in his bedchamber?'" Important questions. I do not know what the Lord Keeper

answered.

Three of these exiled "ministers of good estimation" -Bale, Ponet, and Traheron-have been already introduced to the reader; and I will now briefly mention four others.

JOHN KNOX is a person so well known that it is needless to waste room in describing him. At the same time, it is probable that most readers know more of him as the Reformer in Scotland, than as the exile in Geneva and Frankfort. It is enough, however, for our purpose, to say that during his exile in the former place he published his famous work, entitled, "The First Blast of the Trompet | against the monstrvovs regiment of women." It is a little book of 112 pages, in sixteens, and in a type about the size of that which is here used. It is chiefly to this work of his that we have occasion, at present, to refer.

CHRISTOPHER GOODMAN is not so popularly known as his friend Knox; but he was a person of eminence and importance among the exiles. "He was born," says Anthony a Wood, "in Cheshire, particularly, as I conceive, within the city of Chester;" but he can add little more than that he became a student of Brasenose in 1536, aged seventeen or thereabouts, and took one degree in arts. In 1544, he proceeded in that faculty, and in three years after became a senior student of Christ Church, then newly founded. In 1551, or thereabouts, he was admitted to the reading of the

2 Strype, Life of Parker, I. 85.

3 Every one who wishes to understand this period must read "The Troubles of Frankfort;" and the public is much indebted to Mr. Petheram for having reprinted that rare and valuable book with so much accuracy, and in such a cheap and readable form.

6

5

sentences, "at which time he was (as 'tis said) reader of 'the divinity lesson in the university, but whether of that 'founded by the Lady Margaret or by K. Henry VIII. seems as yet doubtful.”4 From this Wood passes at once to his exile, which according to this account seems to have begun when he was about thirty-five years of age. The precise time or occasion of his flight I do not find. He first appears among the exiles, I believe, by his signature to a letter dated from Strasburgh, the 23rd of November, 1554. Parsons, in his Three Conversions, charges him with having been implicated in the conspiracy against the queen's life, for which William Thomas was executed on the 17th of May in that year. Whether this is true or not, it is certain that Goodman highly approved of Wyat's rebellion, and was anxious to have it known how much he deplored its failure. Whether, like Ponet, he was actually in the rebel party, does not appear; but, like him, when he got on the safe side of the water, and had " pen, ink, paper, and quietness,' " he abused those blessings by writing a book on politics, intituled, "How superior powers oght to be obeyd of their subiects: and wherin they may lawfully by Gods Worde be disobeyed and resisted. Wherein also is declared the cause of all this present miserie in England, and the onely way to remedy the same." This

Athenæ, I. 171. Ed. Bliss.

5 His friend Bartlet Green, already mentioned, in his "Confession and Saying," (Fox, VII. 738,) vouches for his having been in England on Easter Sunday (March 25), 1554; for "he the said Bartlet, two times, to wit, at two Easter tides or days, in the chamber of John Pulline, one of the preachers in King Edward's time, within the parish of St. Michael's, Cornhill, of the diocese of London, did receive the communion 'with the said Pulline, and Christopher Goodman, sometime reader of 'the divinity lecture in Oxford, now gone beyond the sea." As there is some ambiguity in Fox's language, I may add that it was the chamber which was in the parish of St. Michael, Cornhill. John Pulline, or Pulleyn, had been rector of St. Peter's, Cornhill, before his exile, and was reinstated on his return, and afterwards had the archdeaconry of Colchester, with other preferment. Perhaps this may be the place to which Wood refers when he tells us " 'tis said" Goodman was reader of the divinity lesson in Oxford. As we have had occasion to notice Green's letter to one Christopher Goodman "it may be added, that beside the news about the "printed papers of questions" it informed him that the queen was "not yet dead."

66

6 Vol. II. p. 220.

7 Strype, Mem. III. i. 234.

book, like that of Knox, is printed at Geneva in sixteens, but with a smaller type, and consisting of 238 pages, so that it is, in fact, a much larger work.8

WILLIAM WHITTINGHAM, fellow of All-Souls' College, Oxford, in 1545, and two years after a senior scholar of Christ Church on its foundation, is said by Anthony a Wood to have had leave to travel for three years, commencing on the 17th May, 1550, and to have married a Frenchwoman, and remained abroad till the latter end of King Edward's reign. Whether this necessarily implies that he then came to England, and if he did, why, or precisely when, he returned to the Continent, I do not find; but it is clear that he was one of the first exiles that came to Frankfort, where he arrived on the 27th of June, 1554; being then, if Wood's chronology is correct, about thirty years of age. He was at this time a layman; but being of the more violent party, which in the time of the Troubles seceded from Frankfort and went to Geneva, and having, at the urgent solicitation of Calvin, been (as Anthony a Wood says) "made a minister according to the Genevan fashion," he took charge of the English congregation there; it having been left without a pastor, by Knox's removal to Frankfort. This, the only ordination that he ever received, furnished a subject of discussion when he afterwards became Dean of Durham, and his fellow-exile, Sandys, was Archbishop of York. But with these matters we are not at present particularly concerned. He who wishes to know about "the works of impiety that he performed while he sate Dean of Durham," may learn

8 Perhaps I may be allowed to append a bibliographical remark on this rare book, which readers who are not interested in such inquiries may pass over; but on which those who are, may be able to give, or glad to receive, information. Herbert, vol. iii. p. 1597, describes this work from his own copy, and I doubt not very accurately; but while there is perfect agreement on most points, there is one variation in the Lambeth copy. This has indeed the "pythagorean Y" but no "youth is tumbling down" from the broad side, and no "laurel crown" decorates the narrow side. On the other hand, there is (what he does not mention) a scroll running across behind the upper part of the Y, and streaming down the side opposite to Pythagoras, bearing in capital letters the motto INTRATE PER ARCTAM VIAM SO divided that the two former words appear between the branches of the Y, and the two latter in the part of the scroll which streams down. Were there two editions, or was the device changed in the course of the impression?

F