aud_, 70.

[59:1] Winwood's _Memorials_, III. 136.

[59:2] Letter of January 5th, 1614, in _Court and Times of James
I._

CHAPTER III

CHARLES THE FIRST'S BOOK-FIRES.

Few things now seem more surprising than the sort of fury with
which in the earlier part of the seventeenth century the extreme
rights of monarchs were advocated by large numbers of Englishmen.
Political servitude was then the favourite dream of thousands.
The Church made herself especially prominent on the side of
prerogative; the pulpits resounded with what our ancestors called
Crown Divinity; and in the reign of Charles I. the rival
principles, ultimately fought for on the battlefield, first came
into conflict over sermons, the immediate cause, indeed, of so
many of the greatest political movements of our history.

The first episode in this connection is the important case of Dr.
Roger Manwaring, one of Charles's chaplains, who, at the time
when the King was pressing for a compulsory loan, preached two
sermons before him, advocating the King's right to impose any
loan or tax without consent of Parliament, and, in fact, making a
clean sweep of all the liberties of the subject whatsoever. At
Charles's request, Manwaring published these sermons under the
title of _Religion and Allegiance_ (1627). But the popular party
in Parliament resolved to make an example of him, and a long
speech on the subject by Pym is preserved in Rushworth. The
Commons begged the Lords to pronounce judgment upon him, and a
most severe one they did pronounce. He was to be imprisoned
during the House's pleasure; to be fined L1000 to the King; to
make a written submission at the bars of both Houses; to be
suspended for three years; to be disabled from ever preaching at
Court, or holding any ecclesiastical or secular office; and the
King was to be moved to grant a proclamation for calling in and
burning his book.

On June 23rd, 1628, Manwaring made accordingly a most abject
submission at the bars of both Houses, Heylin says, on his knees
and with tears in his eyes, confessing his sermons to have been
"full of dangerous passages, inferences, and scandalous
aspersions in most parts"; and the next day Charles issued a
proclamation for calling them in, as having incurred "the just
censure and sentence of the High Court of Parliament." The
sentence of suppression presumably in this case carried the
burning; but, if so, there is no mention of any public burning by
the