under the High Commission. Several members supported the
motion: but the queen, sending in wrath for the speaker, required him to
deliver up to her the bill; reminded him of her strict injunctions at
the opening of the sessions, and testified her extreme indignation and
surprise at the boldness of the commons in intermeddling with subjects
which she had expressly forbidden them to discuss. She informed him,
that it lay in her power to summon parliaments and to dismiss them; and
to sanction or to reject any determination of theirs; that she had at
present called them together for the twofold purpose, of enacting
further laws for the maintenance of religious conformity, and of
providing for the national defence against Spain; and that these ought
therefore to be the objects of their deliberations.

As for Morice, he was seized by a serjeant at arms in the house itself,
stripped of his offices, rendered incapable of practising as a lawyer,
and committed to prison, whence he soon after addressed to Burleigh the
following high-minded appeal:

* * * * *

"Right honorable my very good lord;

"That I am no more hardly handled, I impute next unto God to your
honorable good will and favor; for although I am assured that the cause
I took in hand is good and honest, yet I believe that, besides your
lordship and that honorable person your son, I have never an honorable
friend. But no matter; for the best causes seldom find the most friends,
especially having many, and those mighty, enemies.

"I see no cause in my conscience to repent me of that I have done, nor
to be dismayed, although grieved, by this my restraint of liberty; for I
stand for the maintenance of the honor of God and of my prince, and for
the preservation of public justice and the liberties of my country
against wrong and oppression; being well content, at her majesty's good
pleasure and commandment, (whom I beseech God long to preserve in all
princely felicity,) to suffer and abide much more. But I had thought
that the judges ecclesiastical, being charged in the great council of
the realm to be dishonorers of God and of her majesty, perverters of
law and public justice, and wrong-doers unto the liberties and freedoms
of all her majesty's subjects, by their extorted oaths, wrongful
imprisonments, lawless subscription, and unjust absolutions, would
rather have sought means to be cleared of this weighty accusation, than
to shrowd the