chinations begot a tender solicitude for so precious an existence, ending in a popularity which was not to be shaken by minor blemishes in administration, and daily kept alive amongst the ruling party, on the one hand, by the terror of wild innovation, and the imputed designs of the sects to upset the rights of property; on the other, by the conspiracies of Papists, who, after the northern rebellion, the cruelties towards the reformed on the Continent, who were assisted by the English court in their noble struggle for freedom, the massacre of Paris, the different plots in connection with the Scottish Queen, and the projected Spanish invasion, were regarded with still greater horror, as monsters not only of impiety, but of every immoral and cruel propensity towards their fellow-beings,—as if their creed had not been common to all the ancestors of their condemners, who were consequently involved in the same sentence. This great source of popularity, Elizabeth sedulously cultivated; and no monarch ever seemed better qualified to gain the affections of the multitude. She had, besides, a vast advantage in the general wisdom of her council, who tempered moderation with severity, and knew how far they might safely go in stretches of prerogative. Her policy too, though not always just, was calculated for success. She, like her predecessors, interfered in elections to Parliaments; and she gratified leading men by gifts, some of them, it must be confessed, such as patents and monopolies, of a description no less inequitable than pernicious to the rest of the com munity. The middling and lower classes she eonciliated by a more rigid dispensation of justice, in questions with the higher, than had previously been practised; and she both weakened such of the aristocracy as she dreaded, and obliged the lower classes, by rendering the smaller tenants more independent *. From these sources sprung the great influence of Elizabeth, and thence it was that she was permitted, in some cases, to adopt measures not altoge ther consistent with the liberty of the people, and even on certain occasions to invade the privileges of parliament. Yet the grand principles of the constitution were preserved, however its spirit might occasionally slumber.-The greatest blot of her reign arose from the proceedings of the Court of High Commission ;-but even in these, there are circumstances which distinctly prove that the watchful spirit of freedom, in regard to stretches of prero. gative, was still alive. The proceedings and powers of this court will fall particularly under consideration in the next chapter; and therefore we shall content ourselves with remarking here, that the queen issued, and the clergy and others accepted of, commissions unauthorized by the statute which allowed the erection of the court: That the commissioners, acting upon such illegal powers, tendered the oath ex officio to answer interrogatories, to those who came before them in the * Scott's Somers' Tracts, vol. i. p. 167, 5 character of offenders; and that they granted warrants to pursuivants to ransack houses, and fined and imprisoned when they had a right only to inflict ecclesiastical censures. But it illustrates the genius of the age, to state that the executive did not venture to enrol those commissions in Chaneery, as ought to have been done, lest their lawfulness should be impugned upon such a publication, which was at least an homage to public opinion*: that not one fine was ever levied during this reign; and that so often as individuals took out prohibitions and appealed to courts of law, they instantly obtained redress by a strict inter pretation of the statute which authorized that court. The power to send pursuivants to ransack houses too, was tried in a memorable way :-A pursuivant having, by virtue of a warrant from the commissioners, attempted to enter a house, was killed by the landlord; and the man was brought before the legal tribunal on a charge of murder. When the prerogative was so much concerned in the result, it is easy to conceive what interest would be made to obtain a judgment against him; but the judges, holding that the commissioners had no right to issue the warrant, concluded that he was justified in killing the pursuivant, and dismissed him from the bar. The true cause of so much severity having been prac As this subject is fully discussed in the next chapter, under the head of the Court of High Commission, I forbear from quoting au thorities here, as altogether superfluous. tised, would appear to have been the ready subs mission of the prisoners, who purposely did not appeal to the law, from a desire to represent themselves as sufferers for conscience sake, in order to gain popular favour, while they recommended themselves to the Queen, by shewing, that though they could not comply with her commands against those of their heavenly master, they would not dispute her power; for, as has been already observed, many of them, while they denounced the English church as antichristian, bastardly, &c. did not decline to hold livings under it, conceiving themselves better entitled to the wages of preaching than "the dumb-dogs," such they denominated the conforming clergy, (for this and other coarse appellations were early familiar,) whom, in the old language of the Papists against the Protestant teachers, they, with some truth, represented as grossly ignorant, as having been shoemakers, tailors, tinkers, millers,, &c.; and some of them as having been actually burned in the hand for crimes. Perhaps also not a few, who, in the face of the law, had begun to set a-foot their church government by presbyteries, synods, &c. willingly submitted to the censures of the Court of High Commission, lest, though they might stop proceedings there, they should be brought before another tribunal and undergo a smarter punishment. During this reign, in spite of much impolicy, partly arising from the erroneous opinions of the |