erbolt. Elizabeth had no will to follow in the
track of Rome, and to help the Pope to drive every waverer into action.
Weakened and broken as it was, she clung obstinately to her system of
compromise; and the general opinion gave her a strength which enabled
her to resist the pressure of her council and her Parliament. So
difficult however was her position that a change might have been forced
on her had she not been aided at this moment by a group of clerical
bigots who gathered under the banner of Presbyterianism.

[Sidenote: Cartwright.]

Of these Thomas Cartwright was the chief. He had studied at Geneva; he
returned with a fanatical faith in Calvinism, and in the system of
Church government which Calvin had devised; and as Margaret Professor of
Divinity at Cambridge he used to the full the opportunities which his
chair gave him of propagating his opinions. No leader of a religious
party ever deserved less of after sympathy. Cartwright was
unquestionably learned and devout, but his bigotry was that of a
mediaeval inquisitor. The relics of the old ritual, the cross in baptism,
the surplice, the giving of a ring in marriage, were to him not merely
distasteful, as they were to the Puritans at large, they were idolatrous
and the mark of the beast. His declamation against ceremonies and
superstition however had little weight with Elizabeth or her Primates;
what scared them was his reckless advocacy of a scheme of ecclesiastical
government which placed the State beneath the feet of the Church. The
absolute rule of bishops indeed Cartwright denounced as begotten of the
devil; but the absolute rule of Presbyters he held to be established by
the word of God. For the Church modelled after the fashion of Geneva he
claimed an authority which surpassed the wildest dreams of the masters
of the Vatican. All spiritual authority and jurisdiction, the decreeing
of doctrine, the ordering of ceremonies, lay wholly in the hands of the
ministers of the Church. To them belonged the supervision of public
morals. In an ordered arrangement of classes and synods, these
Presbyters were to govern their flocks, to regulate their own order, to
decide in matters of faith, to administer "discipline." Their weapon was
excommunication, and they were responsible for its use to none but
Christ. The province of the civil ruler in such a system of religion as
this was simply to carry out the decisions of the Presbyters, "to see
their decrees executed and