After this arrest of the Plumber's Hall assembly, we hear of no other arrests of dissenting congregations for several years. Yet we have intimations that separate meetings were continued, and even enjoyed some sort of toleration so long as Grindal was bishop of London; for he was quite averse to persecuting Christians. Strype, in giving an account of the transactions in 1569, says: "The separatists, who at the beginning of this year had the favor shown them to be set at liberty by the bishop

kins, (vol. 1. pp. 133–49,) gives the dialogue between the commissioners and the separatist prisoners, apparently verbatim, from manuscript sources; from which the reader will get a much more correct impression of this examination than from Strype. There is also, in the same, apparently a verbatim report of a subsequent examination of one of the chief of the laymen of this company, William White.

Authorities differ as to the time of their confinement. Brook (1. 145) makes it "two years"; Neal (1. 267) "above a year"; Strype (Grindal, 200) "about a twelvemonth"; Hopkins (1. 317) ten and a half months." The prisoners themselves say, they were kept in prison one whole year." — Grindal, p. 226. They were confined, June 19th, 1567. The order for their release was signed by the council, April 28th, 1568. But five days elapsed before they were brought before Grindal again, May 3d; and it may be that some six weeks more elapsed before they were all discharged. Some sort of a subscription was required of them, (Annals, vol. 11. pt. 1. ch. 3, p. 40,) and some of them may have refused to make that, and so were kept longer in prison. Indeed, the Londoners of the party say that they made no promises: "We never yielded to no condition in our coming forth of prison, but minded to stand fast in the same sincerity of the gospel that we did when we were in prison." Grindal, 227. Brook may include in his "two years," subsequent imprisonment, which some of this same party endured for their nonconformity. See articles Hawkins, White, Bonham, Crane.

[Grindal], did, it seems, continue their former practices, of using private assemblies, and performing religious offices in a way of their own, different from what was allowed and enjoined, notwithstanding the bishop's admonition, and the threatenings of the council. Their chief teachers were Bonham and Crane, who, at these house-meetings, did use to preach and expound the Scriptures, baptize, administer the communion, marry according to the Geneva book," etc.* And in a petition presented to the honorable privy council, in 1569, by "the Londoners of their party, who also had been under confinement at Bridewell, and set at liberty," they say that on their discharge from prison they were given to understand that "we were freed from our parish churches, and that we might hear such preachers whom we liked best of in the city; also, whereas we requested to have baptism truly administered to our children, according to the word and order of the Geneva book, he [Bishop Grindal] said that he would tolerate it, and appoint two or three to do it; immediately after, at our request, he appointed two preachers, Bonham and Crane, under his handwriting, to keep a lecture." And in his Annals, Strype, in giving an account of Sandys' first visitation of his new diocese of London, says, that certain injunctions were given out, one of which read thus: "All clerks' tolerations to be called in." "This,"

* Strype's Grindal, 226.

† 1b., 226.

he adds, "will be better understood, when we are informed that there had been divers ministers who had private meetings in houses, where they preached, baptized, administered the communion after a new way, different from the public liturgy, and also condemned it and the established government of the church. For which some of them were imprisoned. But such was the clemency of the government of the former bishop, by permission and order of the privy council, įthat he] granted them, after about a year's restraint, their liberty; and upon promise of their peaceable behavior, and a certain subscription, allowed them some toleration."*

* Annals, vol. 1. pt. 1. sect. 3, p. 40.

THOUGH Elizabeth's sovereignty in Church and State was now fully established, yet the period between 1566 and 1572 was one of great excitement, and of imminent danger to her government. It was at this time that the league between the chief papal princes of Europe was consummated, if not formed, having for its grand object the dethronement of Elizabeth and all other protestant princes, and the utter extirpation of protestantism. As a preparatory step, Pope Pius V. issued his bull in May, 1566, "to anathematize and confound the heretics, and to sow discord among them." In this bull, he anathematized "all heretics, [and all] living, trading, or travelling, in or among the same, wheresoever dispersed over the face of the whole earth; and further willed, and authorized the wise and learned of his ecclesiastics to labor, endeavor, and contrive all manner of devices to abate, assuage, and confound these heretics. That thereby the heretics might be reclaimed to confess their

errors, and acknowledge the jurisdiction of the see of Rome, or that a total infamy be brought upon them and their posterities, by a perpetual discord and contention among themselves. By which means they might either speedily perish by God's wrath, or continue in eternal difference."

This bull quickened the papists in the work which Pius IV. (about 1560) and the council of Trent had previously devised to prevent the union of protestants proposed by Calvin.† Popish emissaries soon swarmed over England, in various disguises, secular and ecclesiastical. They even assumed the garb of puritan ministers, and travelled about preaching ultra and extravagant doctrines of any description which they thought adapted to disturb and divide protestants. These popish missionaries were allowed to marry, and to take all necessary oaths, in order to deceive the government; and even to change their names, and to have several different names, the better to accomplish their nefarious purposes.‡ Books, too, against Elizabeth

* Strype's Annals, vol. 1. pt. 11. ch. 48, p. 218.

† Strype's Parker, 1. 141; Annals, vol. 1. pt. 1. ch. 18, p. 341. ‡ Strype's Annals, vol. 1. pt. 11. ch. 48, pp. 218-. The directions furnished these cheats by the council of Trent, were: "That they were not to preach at all after one manner, but to observe the places wherein they came. If Lutherism was prevalent, then to preach Calvinism; if Calvinism, then Lutherism. If they came into England, then either of these, or John Huss' opinions, anabaptism, or any that were contrary to the holy see of Peter; by which their functions would not be suspected, and yet they might still drive on the interest of the mother church; there be