seven Commissioners. [97] The words in which
the jurisdiction of these officers was described were loose, and might
be stretched to almost any extent. All colleges and grammar schools,
even those founded by the liberality of private benefactors, were placed
under the authority of the new board. All who depended for bread on
situations in the Church or in academical institutions, from the Primate
down to the youngest curate, from the Vicechancellors of Oxford and
Cambridge down to the humblest pedagogue who taught Corderius, were at
the royal mercy. If any one of those many thousands was suspected
of doing or saying anything distasteful to the government, the
Commissioners might cite him before them. In their mode of dealing
with him they were fettered by no rules. They were themselves at once
prosecutors and judges. The accused party was furnished with no copy of
the charge. He was examined and crossexamined. If his answers did not
give satisfaction, he was liable to be suspended from his office, to be
ejected from it, to be pronounced incapable of holding any preferment
in future. If he were contumacious, he might be excommunicated, or, in
other words, be deprived of all civil rights and imprisoned for life. He
might also, at the discretion of the court, be loaded with all the costs
of the proceeding by which he had been reduced to beggary. No appeal
was given. The Commissioners were directed to execute their office
notwithstanding any law which might be, or might seem to be,
inconsistent with these regulations. Lastly, lest any person should
doubt that it was intended to revive that terrible court from which the
Long Parliament had freed the nation, the new tribunal was directed to
use a seal bearing exactly the same device and the same superscription
with the seal of the old High Commission. [98]

The chief Commissioner was the Chancellor. His presence and assent were
necessary to every proceeding. All men knew how unjustly, insolently,
and barbarously he had acted in courts where he had been, to a certain
extent, restrained by the known laws of England. It was, therefore,
not difficult to foresee how he would conduct himself in a situation in
which he was at entire liberty to make forms of procedure and rules of
evidence for himself.

Of the other six Commissioners three were prelates and three laymen. The
name of Archbishop Sancroft stood first. But he was fully convinced that
the court was illegal, that all its