the antagonist of the
learned Dr. Cartwright, and he proved a ruler of the church according
to her majesty's mind. He commenced a most violent crusade against the
non-conformists, and was so harsh, cruel, and unreasonable, that
Cecil--Lord Burleigh--was obliged to remonstrate, being much more
enlightened than the prelate. "I have read over," said he, "your
twenty-four articles, and I find them so curiously penned, that I
think that the Spanish Inquisition used not so many questions to
entrap the priests." Nevertheless fines, imprisonment, and the gibbet
continued to do their work in the vain attempt to put down opinions,
till within four or five years of the queen's death when there was a
cessation of persecution.

[Sidenote: Persecution under James.]

[Sidenote: Puritans in Exile.]

But the Scottish Solomon, as James was called, renewed the severity
which Elizabeth found it wise to remit. Hitherto, the Puritans had
been chiefly Presbyterians; but now the Independents arose, who
carried their views still further, even to wildness and radicalism.
They were stricter Calvinists, and inclined to republican views of
civil government. Consequently, they were still more odious than were
the Presbyterians to an arbitrary government. They were now persecuted
for their doctrines of faith, as well as for their forms of worship.
The Church of England retained the thirty-nine articles; but many of
her leading clergy sympathized with the views of Arminius, and among
them was the primate himself. So strictly were Arminian doctrines
cherished, that no person under a dean was permitted to discourse on
predestination, election, reprobation, efficacy, or universality of
God's grace. And the king himself would hear no doctrines preached,
except those he had condemned at the synod of Dort. But this act was
aimed against the Puritans, who, of all parties, were fond of
preaching on what was called "the Five Points of Calvinism." But they
paid dearly for their independence. James absolutely detested them,
regarded them as a sect insufferable in a well-governed commonwealth,
and punished them with the greatest severity. Their theological
doctrines, their notions of church government, and, above all, their
spirit of democratic liberty, were odious and repulsive. Archbishop
Bancroft, who succeeded Whitgift in 1604, went beyond all his
predecessors in bigotry, but had not their commanding intellects. His
measures were so injudicious, so vexati