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Financial derivatives 3rd Edition Robert Kolb Digital
Instant Download
Author(s): Robert Kolb, James A. Overdahl
ISBN(s): 9780471467663, 0471467669
Edition: 3
File Details: PDF, 1.33 MB
Year: 2002
Language: english
 Financial
derivatives
 John Wiley & Sons
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 Financial
derivatives
Third Edition

ROBERT W. KOLB
JAMES A. OVERDAHL

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Copyright © 2003 by Robert W. Kolb and James A. Overdahl. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my splendid Lori, an original who is anything
but derivative.
R.W.K.

To Janis, who is consistently above fair value.

J.A.O.
 preface

inancial Derivatives introduces the broad range of markets for financial

F derivatives. A financial derivative is a financial instrument based on an-
other more elementary financial instrument. The value of the financial de-
rivative depends on, or derives from, the more basic instrument. Usually, the
base instrument is a cash market financial instrument, such as a bond or a
share of stock.
Introductory in nature, this book is designed to supplement a wide
range of college and university finance and economics classes. Every effort
has been made to reduce the mathematical demands placed on the student,
while still developing a broad understanding of trading, pricing, and risk
management applications of financial derivatives.
The text has two principal goals. First, the book offers a broad overview
of the different types of financial derivatives (futures, options, options on fu-
tures, and swaps), while focusing on the principles that determine market
prices. These instruments are the basic building blocks of all more compli-
cated risk management positions. Second, the text presents financial deriva-
tives as tools for risk management, not as instruments of speculation. While
financial derivatives are unsurpassed as tools for speculation, the book em-
phasizes the application of financial derivatives as risk management tools in
a corporate setting. This approach is consistent with today’s emergence of fi-
nancial institutions and corporations as dominant forces in markets for
financial derivatives.
This edition of Financial Derivatives includes three new chapters de-
scribing the applications of financial derivatives to risk management. These
new chapters reflect an increased emphasis on exploring how financial deriv-
atives are applied to managing financial risks. These new chapters—Chapter
3 (Risk Management with Futures Contracts), Chapter 5 (Risk Management
with Options Contracts), and Chapter 7 (Risk Management with Swaps)—in-
clude several new applied examples. These application chapters follow the
chapters describing futures (Chapter 2), options (Chapter 4), and the market
swaps (Chapter 6). Chapter 1 (Introduction), surveys the major types of fi-
nancial derivatives and their basic applications. The chapter discusses three
types of financial derivatives—futures, options, and swaps. It then considers

vii
viii PREFACE

financial engineering—the application of financial derivatives to manage risk.

The chapter concludes with a discussion of the markets for financial deriva-
tives and brief comments on the social function of financial derivatives.
Chapter 2 (Futures) explores the futures markets in the United States
and the contracts traded on them. Futures markets have a reputation for
being incredibly risky. To a large extent, this reputation is justified, but fu-
tures contracts may also be used to manage many different kinds of risks.
The chapter begins by explaining how a futures exchange is organized and
how it helps to promote liquidity to attract greater trading volume. Chapter
2 focuses on the principles of futures pricing. Applications of futures con-
tracts for risk management are explored in Chapter 3.
The second basic type of financial derivative, the option contract, is the
subject of Chapter 4 (Options). Options markets are very diverse and have
their own particular jargon. As a consequence, understanding options re-
quires a grasp of the institutional details and terminology employed in the
market. Chapter 4 begins with a discussion of the institutional background
of options markets, including the kinds of contracts traded and the price
quotations for various options. However, the chapter focuses principally on
the valuation of options. For a potential speculator in options, these pricing
relationships are of the greatest importance, as they are for a trader who
wants to use options to manage risk.
Applications of options for risk management are explored in Chapter 5.
In addition to showing how option contracts can be used in risk manage-
ment, Chapter 5 shows how the option pricing model can be used to guide
risk management decisions. The chapter emphasizes the role of option sen-
sitivity measures (i.e., “The Greeks”) in portfolio management.
Compared to futures or options, swap contracts are a recent innova-
tion. A swap is an agreement between two parties, called counterparties, to
exchange sets of cash flows over a period in the future. For example, Party
A might agree to pay a fixed rate of interest on $1 million each year for five
years to Party B. In return, Party B might pay a floating rate of interest on
$1 million each year for five years. The cash flows that the counterparties
make are can be tied to the value of debt instruments, to the value of foreign
currencies, the value of equities or commodities, or the credit characteristics
of a reference asset. This gives rise to five basic kinds of swaps: interest rate
swaps, currency swaps, equity swaps, commodity swaps, and credit swaps.
Chapter 6 (The Swaps Market) provides a basic introduction to the swaps
market, a market that has grown incredibly over the last decade. Today, the
swaps market has begun to dwarf other derivatives markets, as well as secu-
rities markets, including the stock and bond markets. New to this edition’s
treatment of swaps is a section on counterparty credit risk. Also, applied ex-
amples of swaps pricing have been added.
Preface ix

Applications of swaps for risk management are explored in Chapter 7.

New to this edition are sections on duration gap management, uses of eq-
uity swaps, and swap portfolio management. This last section describes the
concepts of value at risk (VaR) and stress testing and their role in managing
the risk of a derivatives portfolio.
Chapter 8 (Financial Engineering and Structured Products) shows how
forwards, futures, options, and swaps are building blocks that can be com-
bined by the financial engineer to create new instruments that have highly
specialized and desirable risk and return characteristics. While the financial
engineer cannot create instruments that violate the well–established trade–offs
between risk and return, it is possible to develop positions with risk and re-
turn profiles that fit a specific situation almost exactly. The chapter also ex-
amines some of the high-profile derivatives debacles of the past decade. New
to this edition are descriptions of the Metallgesellschaft and Long-Term Capi-
tal Management debacles.
As always, in creating a book of this type, authors incur many debts. All
of the material in the text has been tested in the classroom and revised in
light of that teaching experience. For their patience with different versions of
the text, we want to thank our students at the University of Miami and Johns
Hopkins University. Shantaram Hegde of the University of Connecticut read
the entire text of the first edition and made many useful suggestions. For
their work on the previous edition, We would like to thank Kateri Davis,
Andrea Coens, and Sandy Schroeder. We would also like to thank the many
professors who made suggestions for improving this new edition.

ROBERT W. KOLB
JAMES A. OVERDAHL
 contents

CHAPTER 1
Introduction 1

CHAPTER 2
Futures 23

CHAPTER 3
Risk Management with Futures Contracts 69

CHAPTER 4
Options 96

CHAPTER 5
Risk Management with Options Contracts 140

CHAPTER 6
The Swaps Market 166

CHAPTER 7
Risk Management with Swaps 199

CHAPTER 8
Financial Engineering and Structured Products 224

APPENDIX 271

QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS WITH ANSWERS 273

NOTES 305

INDEX 313

xi
 CHAPTER 1
Introduction

y now the headlines are familiar: “Gibson Greetings Loses $19.7 Million in
B Derivatives” . . . “Procter and Gamble Takes $157 Million Hit on Deriva-
tives” . . . “Metallgesellschaft Derivatives Losses Put at $1.3 billion” . . . “De-
rivatives Losses Bankrupt Barings.” Such popular press accounts could easily
lead us to conclude that derivatives were not only involved in these losses, but
were responsible for them as well. Over the past few years, derivatives have be-
come inviting targets for criticism. They have become demonized—the “D”
word—the junk bonds of the New Millennium. But what are they?
Actually, there is not an easy definition. Economists, accountants,
lawyers, and government regulators have all struggled to develop a precise
definition. Imprecision in the use of the term, moreover, is more than just a
semantic problem. It also is a real problem for firms that must operate in a
regulatory environment where the meaning of the term often depends on
which regulator is using it.
Although there are several competing definitions, we define a derivative
as a contract that derives most of its value from some underlying asset, ref-
erence rate, or index. As our definition implies, a derivative must be based
on at least one underlying. An underlying is the asset, reference rate, or
index from which a derivative inherits its principal source of value. Falling
within our definition are several different types of derivatives, including
commodity derivatives and financial derivatives. A commodity derivative is
a derivative contract specifying a commodity or commodity index as the un-
derlying. For example, a crude oil forward contract specifies the price,
quantity, and date of a future exchange of the grade of crude oil that under-
lies the forward contract. Because crude oil is a commodity, a crude oil for-
ward contract would be a commodity derivative. A financial derivative, the
focus of this book, is a derivative contract specifying a financial instrument,
interest rate, foreign exchange rate, or financial index as the underlying. For
example, a call option on IBM stock gives its owner the right to buy the
IBM shares that underlie the option at a predetermined price. In this sense,

1
2 FINANCIAL DERIVATIVES

an IBM call option derives its value from the value of the underlying shares
of IBM stock. Because IBM stock is a financial instrument, the IBM call op-
tion is a financial derivative.
In practice, financial derivatives cover a diverse spectrum of underly-
ings, including stocks, bonds, exchange rates, interest rates, credit charac-
teristics, or stock market indexes. Practically nothing limits the financial
instruments, reference rates, or indexes that can serve as the underlying for
a financial derivatives contract. Some derivatives, moreover, can be based
on more than one underlying. For example, the value of a financial deriva-
tive may depend on the difference between a domestic interest rate and a
foreign interest rate (i.e., two separate reference rates).
In this chapter, we briefly discuss the major types of financial deriva-
tives and describe some of the ways in which they are used. In succeeding
sections, we discuss four types of financial derivatives—forward contracts,
futures, options, and swaps. We then turn to a brief consideration of fi-
nancial engineering—the use of financial derivatives, perhaps in combina-
tion with standard financial instruments, to create more complex
instruments, to solve complex risk management problems, and to exploit
arbitrage opportunities. We conclude with a discussion of the markets for
financial derivatives and brief comments on their social function.

FORWARD CONTRACTS
The most basic forward contract is a forward delivery contract. A forward
delivery contract is a contract negotiated between two parties for the deliv-
ery of a physical asset (e.g., oil or gold) at a certain time in the future for a
certain price fixed at the inception of the contract. The parties that agree to
the forward delivery contract are known as counterparties. No actual trans-
fer of ownership occurs in the underlying asset when the contract is initi-
ated. Instead, there is simply an agreement to transfer ownership of the
underlying asset at some future delivery date. A forward transaction from
the perspective of the buyer establishes a long position in the underlying
commodity. A forward transaction from the perspective of the seller estab-
lishes a short position in the underlying commodity.
A simple forward delivery contract might specify the exchange of 100
troy ounces of gold one year in the future for a price agreed on today, say
$400/oz. If the discounted expected future price of gold in the future is
equal to $400/oz. today, the forward contract has no value to either party
ex ante and thus involves no cash payments at inception. If the spot price
of gold (i.e., the price for immediate delivery) rises to $450/oz. one year
Introduction 3

from now, the purchaser of this contract makes a profit equal to $5,000
($450 minus $400, times 100 ounces), due entirely to the increase in the
price of gold above its initial expected present value. Suppose instead the
spot price of gold in a year happened to be $350/oz. Then the purchaser of
the forward contract loses $5,000 ($350 minus $400, times 100 ounces),
and she would prefer to have bought the gold at the lower spot price at the
maturity date.
For the short, every dollar increase in the spot price of gold above the
price at which the contract is negotiated causes a $1 per ounce loss on the
contract at maturity. Every dollar decline in the spot price of gold yields a
$1 per ounce increase in the contract’s value at maturity. If the spot price of
gold at maturity is exactly $400/oz., the forward seller is no better or worse
off than if she had not entered into the contract.
From our example, we can see that the value of the forward contract de-
pends not only on the value of the gold, but also on the creditworthiness of
the contract’s counterparties. Each counterparty must trust that the other
will complete the contract as promised. A default by the losing counterparty
means that the winning counterparty will not receive what she is owed under
the terms of the contract. The possibility of default is known in advance to
both counterparties. Consequently, this kind of forward contract can rea-
sonably take place only between creditworthy counterparties or between
counterparties who are willing to mitigate the credit risk they pose by post-
ing collateral or other credit enhancements.
The most notable forward market is the foreign exchange forward mar-
ket, in which current volume is in excess of one-third of a trillion dollars per
day. Forward contracts on physical commodities are also commonly ob-
served. Forward contracts on both foreign exchange and physical commodi-
ties involve physical settlement at maturity. A contract to purchase Japanese
yen for British pounds three months hence, for example, involves a physical
transfer of sterling from the buyer to the seller, in return for which the buyer
receives yen from the seller at the negotiated exchange rate. Many forward
contracts, however, are cash-settled forward contracts. At the maturity of
such contracts, the long receives a cash payment if the spot price on the un-
derlying prevailing at the contract’s maturity date is above the purchase
price specified in the contract. If the spot price on the underlying prevailing
at the maturity date of the contract is below the purchase price specified in
the contract, then the long makes a cash payment.
Forward contracts are important not only because they play an impor-
tant role as financial instruments in their own right but also because many
other financial instruments embodying complex features can be decom-
posed into various combinations of long and short forward positions.
4 FINANCIAL DERIVATIVES

FUTURES CONTRACTS
A futures contract is essentially a forward contract that is traded on an
organized financial exchange such as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange
(CME).1 Organized futures markets as we know them arose in the mid-1800s
in Chicago. Futures markets began with grains, such as corn, oats, and
wheat, as the underlying asset. Financial futures are futures contracts based
on a financial instrument or financial index. Today, financial futures based on
currencies, debt instruments, and financial indexes trade actively. Foreign cur-
rency futures are futures contracts calling for the delivery of a specific
amount of a foreign currency at a specified future date in return for a given
payment of U.S. dollars. Interest rate futures take a debt instrument, such as a
Treasury bill (T-bill) or Treasury bond (T-bond), as their underlying financial
instrument. With these kinds of contracts, the trader must deliver a certain
kind of debt instrument to fulfill the contract. In addition, some interest rate
futures are settled with cash. A popular cash-settled interest rate futures
contract is the CME’s Eurodollar futures contract, which has a value at expi-
ration based on the difference between 100 and the then-prevailing three-
month London Interbank Offer Rate (LIBOR). Eurodollar futures are
currently listed with quarterly expiration dates and up to 10 years to matu-
rity. The 10-year deferred contract, for example, has an underlying of the
three-month U.S. dollar LIBOR expected to prevail 10 years hence.
Financial futures also trade based on financial indexes. For these kinds
of financial futures, there is no delivery, but traders complete their obliga-
tions by making cash payments based on changes in the value of the index.
Stock index futures are futures contracts that are based on the value of an
underlying stock index, such as the S&P 500 index. For these futures, move-
ments in the index determine the gains and losses. Rather than attempt to
deliver a basket of the 500 stocks in the index, traders settle their accounts
by making cash payments that are consistent with movements in the index.
Table 1.1 lists the world’s major futures exchanges and the types of financial
futures that they trade.2 Financial futures were introduced only in the early
1970s. The first financial futures contracts were for foreign exchange, with
interest rate futures beginning to trade in the mid-1970s, followed by stock
index futures in the early 1980s.
Most futures transactions in the United States occur through the open
outcry trading process, in which traders literally “cry out” their bids to go
long and offers to go short in a physical trading “pit.” This process helps
ensure that all traders in a pit have access to the same information about the
best available prices. In recent years, there have been several attempts to
replicate the trading pit with online computer networks. Replicating the in-
teractions of traders has proven to be a difficult task and computer-based
Introduction 5

TABLE 1.1 World Futures Exchanges and the Financial Futures Contracts They Trade
Exchange FX IRF Index
Chicago Board of Trade (USA) ⽧ ⽧
Chicago Mercantile Exchange (USA) ⽧ ⽧ ⽧
EUREX (Germany and Switzerland) ⽧ ⽧
London International Financial Futures Exchange (UK) ⽧ ⽧
New York Board of Trade (USA) ⽧ ⽧
Kansas City Board of Trade (USA) ⽧
Mid–America Commodity Exchange (USA) ⽧
Bolsa de Mercadorios de Sao Paulo (Brazil) ⽧ ⽧ ⽧
New York Mercantile Exchange (USA) ⽧
London Securities and Derivatives Exchange (UK) ⽧
Tokyo International Financial Futures Exchange (Japan) ⽧ ⽧
Osaka Securities Exchange (Japan) ⽧
Tokyo Stock Echange (Japan) ⽧ ⽧
Korea Stock Exchange (South Korea) ⽧
Singapore Exchange (Singapore) ⽧ ⽧ ⽧
Marche a Terme International de France (France) ⽧ ⽧
Hong Kong Futures Exchange (China) ⽧ ⽧ ⽧
New Zealand Futures Exchange (New Zealand) ⽧ ⽧
Sydney Futures Exchange (Australia) ⽧ ⽧
Montreal Exchange (Canada) ⽧ ⽧
Toronto Futures Exchange (Canada) ⽧
OM Stockholm AB (Sweden) ⽧ ⽧
Cantor Financial Futures Exchange (USA) ⽧
BrokerTec Futures Exchange (USA) ⽧

Notes: FX indicates foreign exchange, IRF indicates interest rate futures, and Index
indicates any of a variety of indexes, including stock indexes, interest rate indexes,
and physical commodity indexes. The New York Board of Trade is the parent com-
pany of the Coffee, Sugar, and Cocoa Exchange, the New York Cotton Exchange,
FINEX, and the New York Futures Exchange. In addition to the exchanges listed in
the table, several other exchanges exist but are not operational.
Sources: Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Wall Street Jour-
nal, Futures Magazine, Intermarket Magazine, various issues, various exchange
publications.
6 FINANCIAL DERIVATIVES

trading has not grown as fast as many industry professionals forecast a

decade ago.

FORWARDS VERSUS FUTURES

To say that a futures contract is a forward contract traded on an organized
exchange implies more than may be obvious. This is because trading on an
organized exchange involves key institutional features aimed at overcoming
the biggest problems traders face in using forward contracts: credit risk ex-
posure, the difficulty of searching for trading partners, and the need for an
economical means of exiting a position prior to contract termination.
To mitigate credit risk, futures exchanges require periodic recognition
of gains and losses. At least daily, futures exchanges mark the value of all fu-
tures accounts to current market-determined futures prices. The winners
can withdraw any gains in value from the previous mark-to-market period,
and those gains are financed by the losses of the “losers” over that period.
Marking to market creates a difference in the way futures and forward
contracts allow traders to lock in prices. With a forward contract, the price
of the asset exchanged at delivery is simply the price specified in the con-
tract. With a futures contract, the buyer pays and the seller receives the
spot price prevailing at the delivery date. If this is so, then how is the price
locked in? The answer is that gains and losses on a futures position are rec-
ognized daily so that over the life of the futures contract the accumulated
profits or losses—coupled with the spot price at delivery—yield a net price
corresponding with the futures price quoted at the time the futures posi-
tion was established. The marking-to-market procedure requires that cus-
tomers post a performance bond that, loosely speaking, covers the
maximum daily loss on their futures position. Those who fail to meet their
margin call have their positions liquidated by the exchange before trading
resumes. But how does the exchange know what the maximum daily loss
is? The answer is that the exchange imposes daily price limits on its con-
tracts (both on the up side and the down side) to define the maximum loss.
For example, the New York Mercantile Exchange limits price movements
for its nearby crude oil contract to $7.50 per barrel from the previous day’s
settlement price. If the limit is hit, then trading halts for the day and can re-
sume that day only at prices within the limit. The point is that marking-to-
market—coupled with daily price limits—serve to reduce exposure to
credit risk.
In addition to marking to market and price limits, futures exchanges
use a clearinghouse to serve as the counterparty to all transactions. If two
traders consummate a transaction at a particular price, the trade immediately
Introduction 7

becomes two legally enforceable contracts: a contract obligating the buyer

to buy from the clearinghouse at the negotiated price, and a contract obli-
gating the seller to sell to the clearinghouse at the negotiated price. Individ-
ual traders thus never have to engage in credit risk evaluation of other
traders. All futures traders face the same credit risk—the risk of a clearing-
house default. To further mitigate credit risk, futures exchanges employ ad-
ditional means, such as capital requirements, to reduce the probability of
clearinghouse default.
A second problem with a forward contract is that the heterogeneity of
contract terms makes it difficult to find a trading partner. The terms of for-
ward contracts are customized to suit the individual needs of the counter-
parties. To agree to a contract, the unique needs of contract counterparties
must correspond. For example, a counterparty who wishes to sell gold for
delivery in one year, may find it difficult to find someone willing to contract
now for the delivery of gold one year from now. Not only must the timing co-
incide for the two parties, but both parties must want to exchange the same
amount of gold. Searching for trading partners under these constraints can
be costly and time consuming, leaving many potential traders unable to con-
summate their desired trades. Organized exchanges, by offering standard-
ized contracts and centralized trading, economize on the cost of searching
for trading partners.
A third and related problem with a forward contract is the difficulty in
exiting a position, short of actually completing delivery. In the example of
the gold forward contract, imagine that one party to the transaction decides
after six months that it is undesirable to complete the contract through the
delivery process. This trader has only two ways to fulfill his or her obliga-
tion. The first way is to make delivery as originally agreed, despite its unde-
sirability. The second is to negotiate with the counterparty, who may in fact
be perfectly happy with the original contract terms, to terminate the con-
tract early, a process that typically requires an inducement in the form of a
cash payment. As explained in Chapter 2, the existence of organized ex-
changes makes it easy for traders to complete their obligations without actu-
ally making or taking delivery.
Because of credit risk exposure, the cost and difficulty of searching for
trading partners, and the need for an economical means of exiting a posi-
tion early, forward markets have always been restricted in size and scope.3
Futures markets have emerged to provide an institutional framework that
copes with these deficiencies of forward contracts. The organized futures
exchange standardizes contract terms and mitigates the credit risk associ-
ated with forward contracts. As we will see in Chapter 2, an organized ex-
change also provides a simple mechanism that allows traders to exit their
positions at any time.
Other documents randomly have
different content
to distinguish themselves by Calvin’s name, will be careful not to
imitate him in this great blemish of his life, which, in reality, hath
tarnished a character, that would otherwise have appeared amongst
the first and brightest of the age he lived in.
In the year 1632, after Calvin’s death, one Nicholas Anthoine was
condemned also by the council of Geneva, to be first hanged, and
afterwards burnt; because, that having forgotten the fear of God, he
had committed the crime of apostacy and high treason against God,
by having opposed the Holy Trinity, denied our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ, blasphemed his holy name, renounced his baptism, and
the like.
 SECT. III.
Persecutions at Bern, Basil, and Zurich.
Valentinus Gentilis,[310] a native of Cosentia in Italy, had the
misfortune also to fall into some heterodox opinions concerning the
Trinity, and held that the Father alone was αυτοθεος, God of himself,
αγεννητος, unbegotten, Essentiator, the giver of essence to all other
beings; but that the Son was Essentiatus, of a derived essence from
the Father, and therefore not αυτοθεος, or God of himself, though at
the same time he allowed him to be truly God. He held much the
same as to the Holy Ghost, making them three eternal Spirits,
distinguished by a gradual and due subordination, reserving the
monarchy to the Father, whom he stiled the one only God. Being
forced to fly his native country, on account of his religion, he came
to Geneva, where there was a church of Italian refugees, several of
whom, such as G. Blandrata, a physician, Gribaldus, a lawyer, and
Paulus Alciatus, differed from the commonly received notions of the
Trinity. When their heterodoxes came to be known at Geneva, they
were cited before the senators, ministers, and presbyters, and being
heard in their own defence, were refuted by Calvin, and all
subscribed to the orthodox faith.
But V. Gentilis having after this endeavoured to propagate his own
opinions, he was again apprehended, and forced by Calvin and
others to a public abjuration, and condemned anno 1558, to an
exemplary penance, viz. “That he should be stripped close to his
shirt, then barefoot and bare-headed should carry in his hand a
lighted torch, and beg God and the court’s pardon on his knees, by
confessing himself maliciously and wickedly to have spread abroad a
false and heretical doctrine; but that he did now from his heart
detest and abhor those abominable, lying, and blasphemous books,
he had composed in its defence; in testimony of which he was to
cast them, with his own hands, into the flames, there to be burnt, to
ashes. And for more ample satisfaction, he was injoined to be led
through all the streets of Geneva, at the sound of trumpet, in his
penitential habit, and strictly commanded not to depart the city
without permission.” And this penance he actually underwent.
But having found means to make his escape, he came at last to
Gaium, a prefecture, subject to the canton of Bern, where he was
seized and imprisoned by the governor, who immediately sent an
account of his apprehension to the senate of Bern, who ordered him
to be brought prisoner to that city, where they put him in jail. After
they had seized all his books and papers, they collected several
articles, with the heads of an indictment out of them to be preferred
against him. Amongst others these were two, 1. “That he dissented
from us, and all the orthodox, in the doctrine of the Trinity.” And 2.
“That his writings contained many impious blasphemies concerning
the Trinity.” And because he continued obstinate in his opinions,
notwithstanding the endeavours of the divines to convert him, he
was condemned by the senate, for his blasphemies against the Son
of God, and the glorious mystery of the Trinity, to be beheaded;
which sentence was executed on him in September, anno 1566.
[311]
At Basil, also, heresy was a crime punishable with death, since
the reformation, as appears from the treatment of the dead body of
David George, an enthusiastical anabaptist. Having left Holland he
went to Basil, and settled there as one that was banished out of his
country for the sake of his religion, propagating his own doctrines by
letters, books, and messengers in Holland. But his errors being
discovered after his death, he was taken out of his grave, and
together with his books and pictures burnt to ashes, by order of the
magistrates, at the place of execution, without the walls of Basil,
May 13, 1559. His opinions were first extracted from the printed
books and manuscript papers found in his house, and himself
declared an arch heretic.
[312]
Zurich also furnishes us with an instance of great cruelty
towards an anabaptist. A severe edict was published against them,
in which there was a penalty of a silver mark, about four shillings
English money, set upon all such as should suffer themselves to be-
rebaptized, or should withhold baptism from their children. And it
was farther declared, that those who openly opposed this order,
should be yet more severely treated. Accordingly one Felix was
drowned at Zurich, upon the sentence pronounced by Zuinglius, in
these four Words, “Qui interum mergit, mergatur:“ He that re-dips,
let him be drowned. This happened in the year 1526. About the
same time also, and since, there were some more of them put to
death. [313]From the same place, also, Ochinus was banished, in his
old age, in the depth of winter, together with his children, because
he was an Arian, and defended polygamy, if Beza’s account of him
be true.
Lubieniecius,[314] a Polish Unitarian, was, through the practices of
the Calvinists, banished with his brethren from Poland, his native
country; and forced to leave several protestant cities of Germany, to
which he had fled for refuge, particularly, Stetin, Frederickstadt, and
Hamburg, through the practices of the Lutheran divines, who were
against all toleration. At Hamburg he received the orders of the
magistrates of the city to depart the place on his death-bed; and
when his dead body was carried to Altenau to be interred, though
the preachers could not, as they endeavoured, prevent his being
buried in the church, yet they did actually prevent the usual funeral
honours being paid him. John Sylvanus,[315] superintendant of the
church of Heidelberg, was put to death by order of Frederick Elector
Palatine, anno 1571, being accused of Arianism.
 SECT. IV.
Persecutions in Holland, and by the Synod of Dort.
If we pass over into Holland, we shall also find that the reformers
there were most of them in the principles and measures of
persecution, and managed their differences with that heat and fury,
as gave great advantages to the Papists, their common enemies. In
the very infancy of the reformation the Lutherans and Calvinists
condemned each other for their supposed heterodoxy in the affair of
the sacrament, and looked upon compliance and mutual toleration to
be things intolerable. These differences were kept up principally by
the clergy of each party. The Prince of Orange, and States of
Holland, who were heartily inclined to the reformation, were not for
confining their protection to any particular set of principles or
opinions, but for granting an universal indulgence in all matters of
religion, aiming at peace and mutual forbearance, and to open the
church as wide as possible for all Christians of unblameable lives;
whereas the clergy being biassed by their passions and inclinations
for those masters, in whose writings they had been instructed,
endeavoured with all their might to establish and conciliate authority
to their respective opinions; aiming only at decisions and definitions,
and shutting up the church by limitations in many doubtful and
disputable articles; so that the disturbances which were raised, and
the severities which were used upon the account of religion,
proceeded from the bigotry of the clergy, contrary to the desire and
intention of the civil magistrate.
Before the ministers of the reformed party were engaged in the
controversy with Arminius,[316] their zeal was continually exerting
itself against the anabaptists, whom they declared to be
excommunicated and cut off from the church, and endeavoured to
convert by violence and force, prohibiting them from preaching
under fines, and banishing them their country, upon account of their
opinions. And the better to colour these proceedings, some of them
wrote in defence of persecution; or, which is the same thing, against
the toleration of any religion or opinions different from their own;
and for the better support of orthodoxy, they would have had the
synods ordain, that all church officers should renew their
subscriptions to the confession and catechism every year, that
hereby they might the better know who had changed their
sentiments, and differed from the received faith. This practice was
perfectly agreeable to the Geneva discipline; Calvin himself, as hath
been shewn, being in judgment for persecuting heretics; and Beza
having wrote a treatise, anno 1600, to prove the lawfulness of
punishing them. This book was translated from the Latin into the
Low Dutch language by Bogerman, afterwards president of the
synod of Dort, and published with a dedication, and
recommendation of it to the magistrates. The consequence of this
was, that very severe placarts were published against the
anabaptists in Friesland and Groningen, whereby they were
forbidden to preach; and all persons prohibited from letting their
houses and grounds to them, under the penalty of a large fine, or
confinement to bread and water for fourteen days. If they offended
the third time, they were to be banished the city, and the jurisdiction
thereof. Whosoever was discovered to re-baptize any person, should
forfeit twenty dollars; and upon a second conviction to be put to
bread and water, and then be banished. Unbaptized children were
made incapable of inheriting; and if any one married out of the
reformed church, he was declared incapable of inheriting any estate,
and the children made illegitimate.
But the controversy that made the greatest noise, and produced
the most remarkable effects, was that carried on between the
Calvinists and Arminians. Jacobus Arminius, one of the professors of
divinity at Leyden, disputing in his turn about the doctrine of
predestination, advanced several things differing from the opinions
of Calvin on this article, and was in a few months after warmly
opposed by Gomarus his colleague, who held, that “It was appointed
by an eternal decree of God, who amongst mankind shall be saved,
and who shall be damned.” This was indeed the sentiment of most
of the clergy of the United Provinces, who therefore endeavoured to
run down Arminius and his doctrine with the greatest zeal, in their
private conversations, public disputes, and in their very sermons to
their congregations, charging him with innovations, and of being a
follower of the ancient heretical monk Pelagius; whereas the
government was more inclinable to Arminius’s scheme, as being less
rigid in its nature, and more intelligible by the people, and
endeavoured all they could to prevent these differences of the clergy
from breaking out into an open quarrel, to the disturbance of the
public peace. But the ministers of the predestinarian party would
enter into no treaty for peace: the remonstrants were the objects of
their furious zeal, whom they called mamelukes, devils, and plagues;
animating the magistrates to extirpate and destroy them, and crying
out from the pulpits, “We must go through thick and thin, without
fearing to stick in the mire: we know what Elijah did to Baal’s
priests.” And when the time drew near for the election of new
magistrates, they prayed to God for such men, “as would be zealous
even to blood, though it were to cost the whole trade of their cities.”
They also accused them of keeping up a correspondence with the
Jesuits and Spaniards, and of a design to betray their country to
them.
These proceedings gave great disturbance to the magistrates,
especially as many of the clergy took great liberties with them,
furiously inveighing against them in their sermons, as enemies to the
church, and persecutors; as libertines and free-thinkers, who hated
the sincere ministers of God, and endeavoured to turn them out of
their office. This conduct, together with their obstinate refusal of all
measures of accommodation, and peace with the remonstrants, so
incensed the magistrates, that in several cities they suspended some
of the warmest and most seditious of them, and prohibited them
from the public exercises of their ministerial function; particularly
Gezelius of Rotterdam, and afterwards Rosæus, minister at the
Hague, for endeavouring to make a schism in the church, and
exhorting the people to break off communion with their brethren.
Being thus discarded, they assumed to themselves the name of the
persecuted church, and met together in private houses, absolutely
refusing all communion with the remonstrant ministers and party, in
spite of all the attempts made use of to reconcile and unite them.
What the ministers of the contra-remonstrant party aimed at, was
the holding a national council; which at length, after a long
opposition, was agreed to in the assembly of the States-General,
who appointed Dort for the place of the meeting. Prince Maurice of
Orange, the Stadtholder, effectually prepared matters for holding the
said assembly; and as he declared himself openly for the contra-
remonstrant party, not for that he was of their opinions in religion,
being rather inclined to those of Arminius, but because he thought
them the best friends to his family, he took care that the council
should consist of such persons as were well affected to them. In
order to this his excellency changed the government of most of the
towns of Holland, deposed those magistrates who were of the
remonstrant persuasion, or that favoured them in the business of
the toleration, and filled up their places with contra-remonstrants, or
such as promoted their interests; making use of the troops of the
states, to obviate all opposition.
The consequence of this was the imprisonment of several great
men of the remonstrant persuasion, such as the advocate
Oldenbarnevelt, Grotius, and others; and the suspension, or total
deprivation of a considerable number of the remonstrant clergy, such
as Vitenbogart, of the Hague, Grovinckhovius, of Rotterdam,
Grevius, and others, by particular synods met together for that
purpose, and to prepare things, and appoint persons for the ensuing
national one at Dort. The persons fixed on were generally the most
violent of the contra-remonstrant party, and who had publicly
declared, that they would not enter into communion with those who
differed from them, nor agree to any terms of moderation and
peace. There were also several foreign Divines summoned to this
council, who were most of them in the Calvinistic scheme, and
professed enemies to the Arminians.
The lay commissioners also, who were chosen by the States, were
most of them very partial contra-remonstrants; and two or three of
them, who seemed more impartial than the others, were hardly
suffered to speak; and if they did, were presently suspected, and
represented by letters sent to the states, and Prince Maurice, at the
Hague, as persons that favoured the remonstrants; which was then
considered as a crime against the government, insomuch, that by
these insinuations, they were in danger of being stripped of all their
employments.
The session and first opening of this venerable assembly,[317] was
Nov. 13, 1618. John Bogerman was chosen president of it; the same
worthy and moderate Divine, who had before translated into Low
Dutch Beza’s Treatise, to prove the lawfulness of punishing heretics,
with a preface recommendatory to the civil magistrate; chosen not
by the whole synod, but by the Low Country divines only, the
foreigners not being allowed any share in the election.
At the fifth session the remonstrants petitioned the synod, that a
competent number of their friends might have leave to appear
before them, and that the citation might be sent to the whole body,
and not to any single person, to the end that they might be at liberty
to send such as they should judge best qualified to defend their
cause; and particularly insisted, that Grovinckhovius and Goulart
might be of the number. One would have thought that so equitable a
request should have been readily granted. But they were told, that it
could not be allowed that the remonstrants should pass for a distinct
body, or make any deputation of persons in their common name to
treat of their affairs; and agreeably to this declaration, the summons
that were given out were not sent to the remonstrants as a body or
part of the synod, but to such particular persons as the synod
thought fit to choose out of them; which was little less than citing
them as criminals before a body of men, which chiefly consisted of
their professed adversaries.[318] When they first appeared in the
synod, and Episcopius in the name of the rest of them talked of
entering into a regular conference about the points in difference,
they were immediately given to understand, that no conference was
intended; but that their only business was to deliver their
sentiments, and humbly to wait for the judgment of the council
concerning them.
Episcopius, in the name of his brethren, declared, that they did
not own the synod for their lawful judges, because most of that
body were their avowed enemies, and fomenters and promoters of
the unhappy schism amongst them; upon which they were
immediately reprimanded by the president, for impeaching and
arraigning their authority, and presuming to prescribe laws to those
whom the States-General had appointed for their judges. The
Divines of Geneva added upon this head, “That if people obstinately
refused to submit to the lawful determinations of the church, there
then remained two methods to be used against them; the one, that
the civil magistrate might stretch out his arm of compulsion; the
other that the church might exert her power, in order to separate
and cut off, by a public sentence, those who violated the laws of
God.” After many debates on this head, between the synod and the
remonstrants, who adhered to their resolution of not owning the
synod for their judges, they were turned out of it, by Bogerman the
president, with great insolence and fury; to the high dissatisfaction
of many of the foreign Divines.
After the holy synod had thus rid themselves of the remonstrants,
whose learning and good sense would have rendered them
exceeding troublesome to this assembly, they proceeded to fix the
faith; and as they had no opposition to fear, and were almost all of
one side, at least in the main points, they agreed in their articles and
canons, and in their sentence against the remonstrant clergy, who
had been cited to appear before them; which was to this effect:
“They beseeched and charged in the name of Christ, all and singular
the ministers of the churches throughout the United Netherlands,
&c. that they forsake and abandon the well-known five articles of
the remonstrants, as being false, and no other than secret
magazines of errors.—And whereas some, who are gone out from
amongst us, calling themselves remonstrants, have, out of private
views and ends, unlawfully violated the discipline and government of
the church—have not only trumped up old errors, but hammered out
new ones too—have blackened and rendered odious the established
doctrine of the church with impudent slanders and calumnies,
without end or measure; have filled all places with scandal, discord,
scruples, troubles of conscience—all which heinous offences ought to
be restrained and punished in clergymen with the severest censures:
therefore this national synod—being assured of its own authority—
doth declare and determine, that those ministers, who have acted in
the churches as heads of factions, and teachers of errors, are guilty,
and convicted of having violated our holy religion, having made a
rent in the unity of the church, and given very great scandal: and as
for those who were cited before this synod, that they are besides
guilty of intolerable disobedience—to the commands of the
venerable synod: for all which reasons the synod doth, in the first
place, discharge the aforesaid cited persons from all ecclesiastical
administrations, and deprive them of their offices; judging them
likewise unworthy of any academical employment.—And as for the
rest of the remonstrant clergy, they are hereby recommended to the
provincial synods, classes, and consistories—who are to take the
utmost care—that the patrons of errors be prudently discovered;
that all obstinate, clamorous, and factious disturbers of the church
under their jurisdiction, be forthwith deprived of their ecclesiastical
and academical offices.—And they the said provincial synods are
therefore exhorted—to take a particular care, that they admit none
into the ministry who shall refuse to subscribe, or promise to preach
the doctrine, asserted in these synodical decrees; and that they
suffer none to continue in the ministry, by whose public dissent the
doctrine which hath been so unanimously approved by all the
members of this synod, the harmony of the clergy, and the peace of
the church may be again disturbed—And they most earnestly and
humbly beseech their gracious God, that their High Mightinesses
may suffer and ordain this wholesome doctrine, which the synod
hath faithfully expressed—to be maintained alone, and in its purity
within their provinces—and restrain turbulent and unruly spirits—and
may likewise put in execution the sentence pronounced against the
above mentioned persons—and ratify and confirm the decrees of the
synod by their authority.”
The states readily obliged them in this christian and charitable
request; for as soon as the synod was concluded, the old advocate
Barnevelt was beheaded, who had been a zealous and hearty friend
to the remonstrants and their principles, and Grotius condemned to
perpetual imprisonment; and because the cited ministers would not
promise wholly, and always to abstain from the exercise of their
ministerial functions, the states passed a resolution for the banishing
of them on pain, if they did not submit to it, of being treated as
disturbers of the public peace. And though they only begged a
respite of the sentence for a few days, to put their affairs in order,
and to provide themselves with a little money to support themselves
and families in their banishment, even this was unmercifully denied
them, and they were hurried away next morning by four o’clock, as
if they had been enemies to the religion and liberties of their
country.
Such was the effect of this famous presbyterian synod, who
behaved themselves as tyrannically towards their brethren, as any
prelatical council whatsoever could do; and to the honour of the
church of England it must be said, that they owned their synodical
power, and concurred by their deputies, Carleton Bishop of Landaff,
Hall, Davenant, and Ward, in condemning the remonstrants, in
excommunicating and depriving them, and turning them out of their
churches, and in establishing both the discipline and doctrines of
Geneva in the Netherlands. For after the council was ended, the
remonstrants were every where driven out of their churches, and
prohibited from holding any private meetings, and many of them
banished on this very account. The reader will find a very particular
relation of these transactions, in the learned Gerard Brandt’s History
of the Reformation of the Low Countries, to which I must refer him.
 SECT. V.
Persecutions in Great-Britain.
If we look into our own country, we shall find numerous proofs of
the same antichristian spirit and practice. Even our first reformers,
who had seen the flames which the papists had kindled against their
brethren, yet lighted fires themselves to consume those who differed
from them. Cranmer’s hands were stained with the blood of several.
[319]
He had a share in the prosecution and condemnation of that
pious and excellent martyr John Lambert, and consented to the
death of Ann Askew, who were burnt for denying the corporal
presence; which, though Cranmer then believed, he saw afterwards
reason to deny.
In the year 1549, Joan Bocher was condemned for some
enthusiastical opinions about Christ, and delivered over to the
secular power. The sentence being returned to the council, King
Edward VI. was moved to sign a warrant for her being burnt, but
could not be prevailed with to do it. Cranmer endeavoured to
persuade him by such arguments, as rather silenced than satisfied
the young king: so he set his hand to the warrant with tears in his
eyes, saying to the archbishop, that if he did wrong, since it was in
submission to his authority, he should answer for it to God. Though
this struck Cranmer with horror, yet he at last put the sentence in
execution against her.
About two years after one George Van Pare, a Dutchman, was
accused, for saying, “That God the Father was only God, and that
Christ was not very God.” And though he was a person of a very holy
life, yet because he would not abjure, he was condemned for heresy,
and burnt in Smithfield. The Archbishop himself was afterwards
burnt for heresy; which, as Fox observed, many looked on as a just
retaliation from the providence of God, for the cruel severeties he
had used towards others.
 The controversy about the Popish habits was one of the first that
arose amongst the English reformers. Cranmer and Ridley were
zealous for the use of them, whilst other very pious and learned
Divines were for laying them aside, as the badges of idolatry and
antichrist. Amongst these was Dr. Hooper, nominated to the
bishoprick of Gloucester; but because he refused to be consecrated
in the old vestments, he was by order of council first silenced, and
then confined to his own house; and afterwards, by Cranmer’s
means, committed to the Fleet prison, where he continued several
months.
[320]
In the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, A. C. 1559, an act
passed for the uniformity of common prayer, and service in the
church, and administration of the sacraments; by which the queen
and bishops were empowered to ordain such ceremonies in worship,
as they should think for the honour of God, and the edification of his
church. This act was rigourously pressed, and great severities used
to such as could not comply with it. Parker, Archbishop of
Canterbury, made the clergy subscribe to use the prescribed rites
and habits; and cited before him many of the most famous Divines
who scrupled them, and would allow none to be presented to livings,
or preferred in the church, without an intire conformity. He
summoned the whole body of the London pastors and curates to
appear before him at Lambeth, and immediately suspended 37, who
refused to subscribe to the unity of apparel; and signified to them,
that within three months they should be totally deprived, if they
would not conform. So that many churches were shut up; and
though the people were ready to mutiny for want of ministers, yet
the archbishop was deaf to all their complaints, and in his great
goodness and piety was resolved they should have no sacraments or
sermons without the surplice and the cap. And in order to prevent all
opposition to church tyranny, the Star Chamber published a decree
for sealing up the press, and prohibiting any person to print or
publish any book against the queen’s injunctions, or against the
meaning of them. This decree was signed by the bishops of
Canterbury and London.
 This rigid and fanatical zeal for habits and coremonies, caused the
Puritans to separate from the established church, and to hold private
assemblies for worship. But the queen and her prelates soon made
them feel their vengeance. Their meetings were disturbed, and
those who attended them apprehended, and sent in large numbers,
men and women, to Bridewell, for conviction. Others were cited into
the spiritual courts, and not discharged till after long attendance and
great charges. Subscriptions to articles of faith were violently
pressed upon the clergy, and about one hundred of them were
deprived, anno 1572, for refusing to submit to them. Some were
closely imprisoned, and died in jail, through poverty and want.
And that serious piety and christian knowledge might gain ground,
as well as uniformity, the bishops, by order of the queen, put down
the prophesyings of the clergy, anno 1574, who were forbid to
assemble as they had done for some years, to discourse with one
another upon religious subjects and sermons; and as some serious
persons of the laity were used to meet on holidays, or after they had
done work, to read the scriptures, and to improve themselves in
christian knowledge, the parsons of the parishes were sent for, and
ordered to suppress them.
Eleven Dutchmen, who were anabaptists, were condemned in the
consistory of St. Paul to the fire, for heresy; nine of whom were
banished, and two of them burnt alive in Smithfield. In the year
1583, Copping and Thacker, two Puritan ministers, were hanged for
non-conformity. It would be endless to go through all the severities
that were used in this reign upon the account of religion. As the
queen was of a very high and arbitrary temper, she pressed
uniformity with great violence, and found bishops enough, Parker,
Aylmer, Whitgift, and others, to justify and promote her measures;
who either entered their sees with persecuting principles, or
embraced them soon after their entrance, as best befitting the ends
of their promotion. Silencings, deprivations, imprisonments, gibbets,
and stakes, upon the account of religion, were some of the powerful
reasonings of those times. The bishops rioted in power, and many of
them abused it to the most cruel oppressions. The cries of innocent
prisoners, widowed wives, and starving children, made no
impression on their hearts. Piety and learning with them were void
of merit. Refusal of subscriptions, and non-conformity, were crimes
never to be forgiven. A particular account of these things may be
seen in Mr. Neal’s history of the Puritans, who hath done some
justice to that subject.
I shall only add, that the court of high commission established in
this reign, by the instigation of Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury,
by which the commissioners were impowered to inquire into all
misdemeanors, by all such ways and means as they could devise,
and thought necessary; to examine persons upon oath, and to
punish those who refused the oath by fine or imprisonment,
according to their discretion, was an high stretch of the prerogative,
and had a very near resemblance to the courts of inquisition; and
the cruelties that were practised in it, and the exorbitant fines that
were levied by it in the two following reigns, made it the universal
abhorrence of the nation, so that it was dissolved by parliament,
with a clause that no such court should be erected for the future.
[321]
King James I. was bred up in the kirk of Scotland, which
professed the faith and discipline of those called Puritans in England;
and though he blessed God, “For honouring him to be king over such
a kirk, the sincerest kirk in the world,” yet, upon his accession to the
English throne, he soon shewed his aversion to the constitution of
that kirk; and to their brethren, the puritans in England. These were
solicitous for a farther reformation in the church, which the bishops
opposed, instilling this maxim into the king, [322]“No Bishop, no
King;” which, as stale and false a maxim as it is, hath been lately
trumped up, and publicly recommended, in a sermon on the 30th of
January. In the conference at Hampton Court, his Majesty not only
sided with the bishops, but assured the puritan ministers, who were
sent for to it, that “he had not called the assembly together for any
innovations, for that he acknowledged the government ecclesiastical,
as it then was, to have been approved by God himself;” giving them
to understand, that “if they did not conform, he would either hurry
them out of the kingdom, or else do worse.”[323] And these
reasonings of the king were so strong, that Whitgift, Archbishop of
Canterbury, with an impious and sordid flattery said, “He was verily
persuaded that the king spoke by the spirit of God.”
It was no wonder that the bishops, thus supported by an inspired
king, should get an easy victory over the puritans; which possibly
they would not have done, had his majesty been absent, and the
aids of his inspiration withdrawn; since the archbishop did not
pretend that himself or his brethren had any share of it. But having
thus gotten the victory, they strove by many methods of violence to
maintain it; and used such severities towards the non-conformists,
that they were forced to seek refuge in foreign countries. The truth
is, this conference at Hampton Court was never intended to satisfy
the puritans, but as a blind to introduce episcopacy into Scotland,
and to subvert the constitution and establishment of that church.
His majesty, in one of his speeches to his Parliament, tells them,
that “he was never violent and unreasonable in his profession of
religion.” I believe all mankind will now acquit him of any violent and
unreasonable attachment to the protestant religion and liberties. He
added in the same speech, it may be questioned whether by
inspiration of the spirit, “I acknowledge the Roman church to be our
mother church, although defiled with some infirmities and
corruptions.” And he did behave as a very dutiful son of that mother
church, by the many favours he shewed to the papists during his
reign, by his proclamations for uniformity in religion, and
encouraging and supporting his bishops in their persecutions of such
as differed from, or could not submit to them.
Bancroft, promoted to the Archbishoprick of Canterbury, was, as
the historian[324] calls him, “A sturdy piece,” a cruel and inflexible
persecutor, treating the non-conformists with the greatest rigour and
severity; and who, as Heylin tells us, [325]“was resolved to break
them, if they would not bow.” He put the canons and constitutions
agreed on A. C. 1603, furiously into execution, and such as stood
out against them, he either deprived or silenced. And indeed, as the
aforementioned author says, [326]“Who could stand against a man of
such a spirit, armed with authority, having the law on his side, and
the king to his friend? During his being archbishop he deprived,
silenced, suspended, and admonished, above three hundred
ministers. The violencies he and his brethren used in the high-
commission courts, rendered it a public grievance.” [327]“Every man
must conform to the episcopal way, and quit his hold in opinion or
safety. That court was the touchstone, to try whether men were
metal for their stamp; and if they were not soft enough to take such
impressions as were put upon them, they were made malleable
there, or else they could not pass current. This was the beginning of
that mischief, which, when it came to a full ripeness, made such a
bloody tincture in both kingdoms, as never will be got out of the
bishop’s lawn sleeves.”
But nothing displeased the sober part of the nation more, than the
publication of the Book of Sports, which the bishops procured from
the king, and which came out with a command, enjoining all
ministers to read it to their parishioners, and to approve of it; and
those who did not, were brought into the high commission,
imprisoned, and suspended; this book being only a trap to catch
some conscientious men, that they could not otherwise, with all their
cunning, ensnare.
[328]
“These, and such like machinations of the bishops,” says my
author, “to maintain their temporal greatness, ease, and plenty,
made the stones in the walls of their palaces, and the beam in the
timber, afterwards cry out, moulder away, and come to nothing; and
caused their light to go out offensive to the nostrils of the rubbish of
the people.”
Indeed many of the king’s bishops, such as Bancroft, Neal, and
Laud, who was a reputed papist in Oxford, and a man of a
dangerous turbulent spirit, were fit for any work; and as they do not
appear to have had any principles of real piety themselves, they
were the fittest tools that could be made use of to persecute those
who had. Neal, when he was Bishop of Litchfield and Coventry,
prosecuted one Edward Wightman, for broaching erroneous
doctrine, and having canonically condemned him, got the king’s
warrant for his execution; and he was accordingly burnt in Litchfield.
One Legat also was prosecuted and condemned for heresy, by King
Bishop of London, and expired in the flames of Smithfield. He denied
the divinity of our Saviour, according to the Athanasian mode of
explaining it; but as Fuller tells us, he was excellently skilled in
scripture, and his conversation very unblameable. But as these
sacrifices were unacceptable to the people, the king preferred, that
heretics hereafter, though condemned, should silently and privately
waste themselves away in prison, rather than to amuse others with
the solemnity of a public execution.
In the reign of the Royal Martyr,[329] the church grew to the height
of her glory and power; though such is the fate of all human things,
that she soon sickened, languished, and died. Laud, carried all
before him, and ruled both church and kingdom with a rod of iron.
His beginning and rise is thus described by Archbishop Abbot, his
pious and worthy predecessor.
[330]
“His life in Oxford was to pick quarrels in the lectures of the
public readers, and to advertise them to the then Bishop of Durham,
that he might fill the ears of King James with discontents against the
honest men that took pains in their places, and settled the truth,
which he called puritanism, in their auditors.
“He made it his work to see what books were in the press, and to
look over epistles dedicatory, and prefaces to the reader, to see what
faults might be found.
“It was an observation what a sweet man this was like to be, that
the first observable act he did, was the marrying the Earl of
Devonshire to the Lady Rich, when it was notorious to the world that
she had another husband, and the same a nobleman, who had
divers children then living by her. King James did for many years
take this so ill, that he would never hear of any great preferment of
him: insomuch that the Bishop of Lincoln, Dr. Williams, who taketh
upon him to be the first promoter of him, hath many times said, that
when he made mention of Laud to the King, his Majesty was so
averse from it, that he was constrained oftentimes to say, that he
would never desire to serve that master, who could not remit one
fault to his servant. Well, in the end he did conquer it, to get him to
the Bishoprick of St. David’s; which he had not long enjoyed, but he
began to undermine his benefactor, as at this day it appeareth. The
Countess of Buckingham told Lincoln, that St. David’s was the man
that undermined him with her son. And verily, such is his aspiring
nature, that he will underwork any man in the world, so that he may
gain by it.”
[331]
He had a peculiar enmity to Archbishop Abbot, a man of an
holy and unblameable life, because he had informed King James that
Laud was a reputed papist in Oxford, and of a dangerous, turbulent
spirit; and as James I. was wrought up into an incurable animosity
against the puritans, “this was thought to be fomented by the
papists, whose agent Bishop Laud was suspected to be: and though
the king was pleased with asservations to protest his incentive spirit
should be kept under, that the flame should not break out by any
preferment from him; yet getting into Buckingham’s favour, he grew
into such credit, that he was thought to be the bellows which blew
those flames that were every where rising in the nation.
“For the papists used all the artifices they could to make a breach
between the king and his people; and to accomplish this, amongst
other methods, they sowed the seeds of division betwixt puritan and
protestant; for all those were puritans, with this high grown
Armenian popish party, that held in judgment the doctrine of the
reformed churches, or in practice live according to the doctrine
publicly taught in the church of England. And they attributed the
name of protestant,
“1. To such papists, as either out of policy, or by popish
indulgence, held outward communion with the church of England.
“2. To such protestants, as were either tainted with, or inclinable
to their opinions.
“3. To indifferent men, who embrace always that religion, that
shall be commanded by authority. Or,
“4. To such neutrals as care for no religion, but such as stands
with their own liking; so that they allow the church of England the
refuse both of their religion and ours.”
Thus far Wilson: and though Laud might be, as the same historian
relates, of “a motley form of religion” by himself, yet the whole
course of his tyrannical administration gave but too just reason for
suspicion, that his strongest inclinations were towards Rome and
Popery.[332] The first parliament of Charles I. re-assembled at Oxford
in 1625, complained that Popery and Arminianism were
countenanced by a strong party in the kingdom; and Neal Bishop of
Winchester, and Laud, then of St. David’s, were chiefly looked upon
as the heads and protectors of the Arminians, nay, as favourers of
Popery.
The reasons of this suspicion were many. He was drove on by a
rigid, furious, and fanatical zeal for all the ceremonies of the church
of England, even for such as seemed the least necessary. And not
content with these, he promoted and procured the introduction of
many others, which never had been enjoined by lawful authority.
January 16, 1630, he consecrated, as Bishop of London, St.
Catharine Creed Church, with all the fopperies of a popish
superstition. [333]“At the bishop’s approach to the west door, some
that were prepared for it, cried with a loud voice, “Open, open, ye
everlasting doors, that the king of glory may enter in.” Immediately
enters Laud. Then falling down upon his knees, with his eyes lifted
up, and his arms spread abroad, he cried out “This place is holy: the
ground is holy: in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I
pronounce it holy.” Then he took up some of the dust, and threw it
up into the air several times, in his going up towards the chancel.
When they approached near to the rail, and communion table, the
bishop bowed towards it several times; and returning, they went
round the church in procession, singing the 100th psalm; after that
the 19th psalm; and then said a form of prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ,
&c.” concluding, “We consecrate this church, and separate it unto
thee as holy ground, not to be profaned any more to common use.”
“After this the bishop being near the communion table, and taking
a written book in his hand, pronounced curses upon those that
should afterwards profane that holy place, by musters of soldiers, or
keeping profane law courts, or carrying burdens through it; and at
the end of every curse he bowed towards the east, and said, “Let all
the people say,” Amen. After this he pronounced a number of
blessings upon all those who had any hand in framing and building
of that sacred and beautiful church, and those that had given, or
should hereafter give any chalices, plate, ornaments, or utensils; and
at the end of every blessing he bowed towards the East, saying, “Let
all the people say,” Amen.
 “After this followed the sermon; which being ended, the bishop
consecrated and administered the sacrament in manner following.
“As he approached the communion table, he made many lowly
bowings, and coming up to the side of the table, where the bread
and wine were covered, he bowed seven times; and then, after the
reading of many prayers, he came near the bread, and gently lifted
up the corner of the napkin wherein the bread was laid; and when
he beheld the bread, he laid it down again, flew back a step or two,
bowed three several times towards it; then he drew near again, and
opened the napkin, and bowed as before. Then he laid his hand on
the cup, which was full of wine, with a cover upon it; which he let
go, then went back, and bowed thrice towards it. Then he came
near again; and lifting up the cover of the cup, looked into it, and
seeing the wine, he let fall the cover again, retired back, and bowed
as before. Then, he received the sacrament, and gave it to some
principal men; after which many prayers being said, the solemnity of
the consecration ended.”
In this manner have I seen high mass celebrated pontifically. And
from whence did the pious Laud learn all these kneelings, bowings,
throwings of dust, cursings, blessings, and adorations of the
sacramental elements; from the sacred scriptures, or the writings of
the primitive fathers? No: it was an exact copy of the Roman
Pontifical, which was found in his study; and though he alledged in
his defence that it was a form communicated by Bishop Andrews to
him, it was ridiculous, since Andrews himself had it from the same
pontifical.
[334]
The next year, 1632, Henry Sherfield, Esq. recorder of Sarum,
was fined in the Star Chamber £500. on the following occasion.
There was in the city of Salisbury a church called St. Edmund’s,
whose windows were painted with the history of the creation; where
God the Father was represented in the form of an old man, creating
the world during the first six days, but painted sitting on the
seventh, to denote the day of rest. In expressing the creation of the
sun and moon, the painter had put in God’s hand a pair of
compasses, as if he was going to measure them. The recorder was
offended with this profaneness; and, by an order of vestry, took
down those painted glasses, and broke some of the panes with his
stick, and ordered others to be put up in their room. Upon this an
information was exhibited against him in the Star Chamber, by the
attorney-general; where Sherfield was for this reason charged with
being ill-affected to the discipline of the Church of England, and the
government thereof by bishops, because he had broken excellent
pictures of the creation, and fined for his crime in the sum above
mentioned, committed to the Fleet, removed from his recordership,
and bound to his good behaviour. Nor was Laud ashamed, in
justification of such pictures, to urge, as the papists continually do,
that place in Dan. vii. 9, in which God is described as “the ancient of
days;” shewing himself a worse divine, or a more popishly affected
one, than the Earl of Dorset, who then sat with him in the court, and
said, that by that text was meant “the eternity of God, and not God
to be pictured as an old man, creating the world with a pair of
compasses. But I wish” added the Earl, “there were no image of the
Father, neither in the church, nor out of the church; for, at the best,
they are but vanities and teachers of lies.”
In 1633,[335] Laud was made Archbishop of Canterbury; and having
observed that the placing the communion table in the body of the
church, or at the entrance of the chancel, was not only a prostitution
of the table to ordinary and sordid uses, but the chancel looked like
an useless building, fit only for a schooling and parish-meeting,
though originally designed for the most solemn office of religion; to
redeem these places, as he termed it, from profaneness, and restore
them to the primitive use of the holy sacrament, the archbishop
used his utmost diligence to remove the communion table from the
body of the church, and fix it at the upper end of the chancel, and
secure it from the approach of dogs, and all servile uses, by railing it
in, and obliging the people to come up to those rails to receive the
sacrament with more decency and order. This affair, says Lord
Clarendon, he prosecuted more passionately than was fit for the
season, and created disputes in numberless places;[336] so that the
high commission had frequent occasions to punish the ministers,
who were suspected of too little zeal for the Church of England. And
as since the reformation the altars were changed into communion
tables, and placed in the middle of the chancel, to avoid
superstition; many imagined, and that with too much reason, the
tables were again turned into altars with intent to revive a
superstitious worship.
In the year 1634,[337] he set up and repaired Popish images in the
glass windows of his chapel at Lambeth; particularly one of God the
Father, in the form of a little old man. This Laud himself owned, that
he repaired the windows at no small cost, by the help of the
fragments that remained, and vindicated the thing. He introduced
also copes, candlesticks, tapers, and such like trumperies. So that
L’Estrange, whom no man will charge with partiality against the
archbishop, says of him: [338]“The Archbishop of Canterbury stands
aspersed, in common fame, as a great friend at least, and patron of
the Romish Catholics, if he were not of the same belief. To which I
answer by concession: true it is, he had too much and long favoured
the Romish faction—though not the Romish faith. He tampered
indeed to introduce some ceremonies, bordering upon superstition,
disused by us, and abused by them. From whence the Romanists
collected such a good disposition in him to their tenets, as they
began not only to hope, but in good earnest to cry him up for their
proselyte.”
Under the year 1635,[339] the author of the notes to the Complete
History tells us, that one of the great offences taken by wise and
good men against the archbishop, was the new attempt of
reconciling the Church of England to the Church of Rome. The
design was to accommodate the articles of the Church of England to
the sense of the Church of Rome, for the reconciliation of the two
churches. Davenport, an English Franciscan Friar, published a book
to this purpose, under the name of Franciscus de Sancta Clara,
which was dedicated to the king, and said to have been directed to
Archbishop Laud. And it was an article objected against him, that for
the advancement of popery and superstition in this realm, he had
wittingly and willingly harboured and relieved divers popish priests
and jesuits, and particularly Sancta Clara, who hath written a popish
and seditious book, wherein the thirty-nine articles of the Church of
England are much traduced and scandalized, the said archbishop
having divers conferences with him, while he was writing the said
book. The archbishop did not seem to deny his acquaintance with
the man, nor with the design of the book; but was rather afraid the
book would not answer the design.
The same author farther adds, that the best observations on this
matter were made by Mr. Rous, in a speech against Dr. Cosin, March
16, 1640, “A second way by which this army of priests advanceth
this popish design, is the way of treaty. This hath been acted both
by writings and conference. Sancta Clara himself says, ‘Doctissimi
eorum, quibuscunque egi.’ So it seems they have had conference
together. And Sancta Clara, on his part, labours to bring the articles
of our church to popery, and some of our side labour to meet him in
the way. We have a testimony that the great arch-priest himself hath
said: ‘It were no hard matter to make a reconciliation, if a wise man
had the handling of it.’”
Such was the good opinion which the papists had of Laud, and of
his inclinations to popery, that it is certain they offered him a
cardinal’s cap. Eachard and others say he refused it.
[340]
But the Lord Wiquefort, as cited by Mr. Oldmixon, informs us,
in his Treatise of the Ambassador and his Function, that Laud treated
with Count Rosetti, the popish agent in England, for a pension of
48,000 livres a year; which if the Pope would have settled upon him,
he would not only have accepted the cardinal’s cap, but have gone
to Rome, and have dwelt with the Pope and his cardinals as long as
he lived.
The bitter and relentless fury with which he treated the puritans,
and others, who were friends to the Church of England, and some of
the best protestants in the kingdom, is a demonstration that he was
more papist than protestant. Of the puritans he used to say, as
Heylin tells us, that “they were as bad as the papists;” and indeed
he used them in a much worse manner.
In the Considerations he presented to the King, “Anno 1629, for
the better securing the Church Government,” he prayed his Majesty,
amongst other things, that Emanuel and Sydney Colleges in
Cambridge, which are the nurseries of puritanism, may from time to
time be provided of grave and orthodox men for their governors. In
the several accounts of his province, which he sent to the King, we
read almost of nothing but conformity and non-conformity to the
church, refractory people to the church, peevish and disorderly men,
for preaching up the observation of the sabbath, breach of church
canons, wild, turbulent preachers, for preaching against bowing at
the name of Jesus, and in disgrace of the common prayer book; and
in consequence of these things, presentments, citations in the high
commission court, censures, suspensions from preaching, and other
like pious methods, to reduce and reform them.[341] And so grievous
and numerous were the violencies he exercised on these and the like
occasions, in the star chamber, high commission, and spiritual
courts, that many excellent and learned men were forced to leave
the kingdom, and retire to the West-Indies. And yet even this was
unmercifully forbidden them. For in the year 1637, a proclamation
was issued to stop eight ships going to New England; and another
warrant from the council, of which Laud was one, to the Lord
Admiral, to stop all ministers unconformable to the discipline and
ceremonies of the church, who frequently transport themselves to
the summer islands, and other plantations; and that no clergyman
should be suffered to go over, without approbation of the Lord
Archbishop of Canterbury, and Bishop of London. These prohibitions,
as the Complete Historian observes, increased the murmurs and
complaints of the people thus restrained, and raised the cries of a
double persecution, to be vexed at home, and not suffered to seek
peace or refuge abroad.
But how were the papists treated all this while? why with brotherly
mildness and moderation. For whilst these severities were exercising
against protestants, there were many pardons and indulgencies
granted to popish offenders. The papists were in reality his
favourites and friends.
On July 7, 1626,[342] Montague’s books, intitled, “An Appeal to
Cæsar,” and “A Treatise of the Invocation of Saints,” were called in
question by the House of Commons, and reported to contain false,
erroneous, papistical opinions. For instance: “That the Church of
Rome hath ever remained firm, upon the same foundation of
sacraments and doctrines instituted by God. That the controverted
points (between the Church of England and that of Rome) are of a
lesser and inferior nature, of which a man may be ignorant, without
any danger of his soul at all. That images may be used for the
instruction of the ignorant, and excitation of devotion. [343]That there
are tutelar saints as well as angels.” The House of Commons voted
his books to be contrary to the established articles; to tend to the
King’s dishonour, and to the disturbance of church and state. And yet
this zealous protestant Bishop Laud was, as the Complete Historian
assures us, “a zealous friend to the person and opinions of Mr.
Montague;”[344] and made this entry in his diary on this affair. “Jan.
29. Sunday. I understand what D. B. had collected concerning the
Cause, Book, and Opinions of Richard Montague, and what R. C. had
determined with himself therein. Methinks I see a cloud arising, and
threatening the Church of England;” viz. because the popish
opinions of this turbulent priest were censured as contrary to the
established articles of the church of England. He was fit to be made
one of Laud’s brethren; and accordingly was preferred to the
Bishoprick of Chichester, anno 1629.
[345]
The author of the Remarks on the Complete Historian farther
tells us, under the year 1632, that great prejudice was taken against
some of Bishop Laud’s churchmen, by one of them protesting to die
in the communion of the Church of Rome; Dr. Theodore Price,
prebendary of Winchester, and sub-dean of Westminster. Mr. Prynne
affirmed, that this man, very intimate with the archbishop, and
recommended by him specially to the King to be a Welch Bishop, in
opposition to the Earl of Pembroke, and his chaplain Griffith
Williams, soon after died a reconciled papist, and received extreme
unction from a priest. The remarker adds, “It is strange partiality in
the Oxford Historian, to question this matter, when Laud himself, in
his MS notes upon that relation given by Mr. Prynne, doth by no
means deny the fact, but excuses the using his interest for him; and
says, ‘he was more inward with another bishop, and who laboured
his preferment more than I.’”
In the same year, 1632,[346] Mr. Francis Windbank was made
secretary of state by the interest of Bishop Laud, who hath entered
it in his Diary. “1632. June 15. Mr. Francis Windbank, my old friend,
was sworn Secretary of State; which place I obtained for him of my
gracious master King Charles.” He proved so much a creature of the
queen’s, and such an advocate and patron of all suffering papists
and jesuits, that he had the character of a papist, and brought a
very great odium upon Laud who preferred him. That which created
him the more envy, was the turning out the old secretary, Sir John
Coke, who was displaced by Laud “for his honest firmness against
popery,” as the author of the remarks on the complete historian
assures us, and for his hatred and opposition to the jesuits. This job
was labouring for three years’ space and at last obtained by Laud’s
influence on the King.
These instances, and many others which might be mentioned, are
sufficient to discover what sort of a protestant Laud was, and how
he stood affected to the church of Rome. I shall now consider his
character for piety, which was exactly of a piece with his
protestantism.
He was a creature of the Duke of Buckingham, who was one of
the lewdest men in the kingdom. This man, as Archbishop Abbot
said of him, was the only inward counsellor with Buckingham;
“sitting with him sometimes privately whole hours, and feeding his
humour with malice and spite.” His marrying the Earl of Devonshire
to the Lady Rich, though she had another husband, is a glorious
argument of his regard to the laws of God, and particularly of his
reverence for the seventh commandment.
He gave, also, notable proofs of his zeal to maintain the honour of
the fourth. The liberties taken at Wakes, or annual feasts of the
dedication of churches, on Sundays, were grown to a very high
excess, and occasioned great and numerous debaucheries. The lord
chief justice Richardson,[347] in his circuit, made an order to suppress
them, Laud complained of this to the king, as an intrusion upon the
ecclesiastical power; upon which Richardson was severely
reprimanded, and forced to revoke the order. The justices of the
peace upon this drew up a petition to the king, shewing the great
inconveniences which would befal the country, if those revels,
church-ales and clerk-ales, upon the Lord’s-day, were permitted. But
before the petition could be delivered, Laud published by the king’s
order, the declaration concerning recreations on the lord’s-day, “out
of a pious care for the service of God,” as that declaration expresses
it towards the conclusion of it. However, this “pious care” of Laud
and the king was resented by the soberest persons in the nation, as
irreligious and profane, as those revels had been the occasion of an
“infinite number of inconveniences;” and the declaration for
publishing the lawfulness of them through all parish-churches,
[348]
“proved a snare to many ministers, very conformable to the
church of England, because they refused to read the same publicly
in the church, as was required: For upon this many were suspended,
and others silenced from preaching.” An instance of great piety,
unquestionably this; first to establish the profanation of the Lord’s-
day by a public order, and then to persecute and punish those
ministers who could not, in conscience, promote the ends of “so
godly a zeal,” by reading the king’s order for wakes and revels on the
Lord’s-day out of that very place, where perhaps they had been just
before publishing the command of the most high God, not to
profane but to keep it holy.
His treatment of Mr. Prynne may also be added, as another
instance of this prelate’s exemplary love of virtue, and pious zeal for
the service of God. [349]That gentleman published in the year 1632
his Histrio-Mastix, or book against stage-plays; in which, with very
large collections, he exposed the liberties of the stage, and
condemned the lawfulness of acting. Now, because the court
became greatly addicted to these entertainments, and the queen
was so fond of them, as meanly to submit to act a part herself in a
pastoral; therefore this treatise against plays “was suspected” to be
levelled against the court and the queen; and it “was supposed an
innuendo,” that in the table of the book this reference was put,
“women actors notorious whores.” Now mark the christian spirit, the
burning zeal of the pious Laud. Prynne was prosecuted in the star
chamber by Laud’s procurement, who shewed the book to the king,
and pointed at the offensive parts of it; and employed Heylin to pick
out all the virulent passages, and “N. B. to give the severest turn to
them;” and carried these notes to the attorney general for matter of
information, and urged him earnestly to proceed against the author.
 Prynne was accordingly prosecuted; and being sufficiently
convicted by suspicions, suppositions, and innuendoes, he was
sentenced, Laud sitting as one of his judges, to have his book burnt
in the most public manner; to be himself put from the bar, and made
for ever incapable of his profession; to be excluded from the society
of Lincoln’s Inn, and degraded in Oxford; to stand in the pillory in
Westminster and Cheapside, and lose both his ears, one in each
place; with a paper on his head, declaring his offence to be “an
infamous libel” against both their majesties, the state and the
government; to pay a fine of five thousand pounds, and to suffer
perpetual imprisonment. Good God! what cruelty and barbarity is
here? what insolent sporting with men’s fortunes, liberties, and
bodies? What was the occasion of this bloody severity? A
gentleman’s writing against the abuses of plays. Who ordered the
prosecution against him for writing against plays? Archbishop Laud.
Who sat at the head of his judges, who pronounced this infamous
sentence? Archbishop Laud. Excellent archbishop! how christian,
how commendable his zeal! How gloriously must religion flourish
under his archiepiscopal inspection, and by his becoming “the most
reverend” abettor, encourager, and great patron of plays on week
days, and revels on sundays?
[350]
’Tis true, he was for building colleges, repairing churches,
settling statutes for cathedrals, annexing commendams to small
bishoprics, settling of tithes, building hospitals, aggrandizing the
power, and encreasing the riches of the clergy; and these things may
be esteemed arguments of his piety, and of “the greatness of his
soul above the ordinary extent of mankind:” This I do not take on
me to deny; but it puts me in mind of the Carthusian monk,
mentioned by Philip de Comines, in his “Commentaries of the
Neapolitan war:” Comines was looking on the sepulchre of John
Galeacius, first duke of Milan of that name, in the Carthusian church
of Pavia, who had governed with great cruelty and pride, but had
been very liberal in his donations to the church and clergy. As he
was viewing it, one of the monks of the order commended the
virtue, and extolled the piety of Galeacius. Why, says Comines, do
you thus praise him as a saint? You see drawn on his sepulchre the
ensigns of many people, whom he conquered without right. “Oh,”
says the monk, “it is our custom to call them saints, that have been
our benefactors.”
But let us pass on from his piety to his christian tenderness and
compassion, of which there are many very remarkable instances on
record.
[351]
The case of Mr. Prynne, I have already mentioned. Another
instance is that of the Rev. Mr. Peter Smart, who, July 27, 1628,
preached on the Lord’s Day against the innovations brought by Dr.
Cosins into the cathedral church of Durham; such as fonts, candles,
pictures, images, copes, singings, vestments, gestures, prayers,
doctrines, and the like. Cosins demeaned himself during the sermon
very turbulently, and immediately afterwards summoned him before
the high commission; by whom he was censured by two acts of
sequestration, and one of suspension. After this they unlawfully
transmitted him to London, to answer there in the high commission,
for the same cause, before the inquisitors general for the kingdom;
who sent him back again with proper instructions to the high
commission at York, where they fined him £500. committed him to
jail, detained him under great bonds, excommunicated him,
sequestred all his ecclesiastical livings, degraded him, “ab omni
gradu et dignitate clericali;” by virtue of which degradation, his
prebendship and parsonage were both taken from him, and himself
kept in jail. By these oppressions his life was several times
endangered, and himself and children lost and spent above fourteen
thousand pounds of real estate, whereby they were utterly undone.
The hand of Laud was in all this evil, as appears by the book
published by Mr. Smart himself, with the title of “Canterbury’s
Cruelty.”
The truth is, many of the most worthy and learned protestant
gentlemen and divines were treated by him with the utmost indignity
and barbarity; some of them dying in jail, and others being made to
undergo the most cruel bodily punishments, for daring to oppose his
arbitrary and superstitious proceedings. No man of compassion can
read his treatment of Dr. Leighton, without being shocked and
moved in the same tender manner as the House of Commons were,
who several times interrupted, by their tears, the reading of the
Doctor’s petition, which I shall here present my reader with entire,
and leave him to form what character he pleases of the man that
could contrive and carry on such a scene of barbarous and execrable
cruelty.

To the Honourable and High Court of Parliament.

The humble Petition of Alexander Leighton, Prisoner in the Fleet;

HUMBLY SHEWETH,
“How your much and long distressed petitioner, on the 17th of
February gone ten years, was apprehended in Black-Fryers, coming
from the sermon, by a high commission warrant (to which no
subject’s body is liable), and thence, with a multitude of staves and
bills, was dragged along (and all the way reproached by the name of
jesuit and traitor) till they brought him to London-House, where he
was shut up, and, by a strong guard, kept (without food) till seven
of the clock, till Dr. Laud, then Prelate of London, and Dr. Corbet,
then of Oxford, returned from Fulham-House, with a troop
attending. The jailer of Newgate was sent for, who came with irons,
and with a strong power of halberts and staves; they carried your
petitioner through a blind, hollow way, without pretence or
examination; and opening up a gate into the street (which some say
had not been opened since Queen Mary’s days) they thrust him into
a loathsome and ruinous dog-hole, full of rats and mice, which had
no light but a little grate; and the roof being uncovered, the snow
and rain beat in upon him, having no bedding, nor place to make a
fire, but the ruins of an old smoky chimney; where he had neither
meat nor drink, from the Tuesday at night, till the Thursday at noon.
In this woeful place and doleful plight, they kept him close, with two
doors shut upon him, for the space of fifteen weeks; suffering none
to come at him, till at length his wife was only admitted.
“The fourth day after his commitment, the high commission
pursuivants came (under the conduct of the sheriffs of London) to
your petitioner’s house, and a mighty multitude with them, giving
out that they came to search for jesuit’s books. There these violent
fellows of prey laid violent hands upon your petitioner’s distressed
wife, with such barbarous inhumanity, as he is ashamed to express;
and so rifled every soul in the house, holding a bent pistol to a
child’s breast of five years old, threatening to kill him, if he would
not tell where the books were; through which the child was so
affrighted, that he never cast it. They broke open presses, chests,
boxes, the boards of the house, and every thing they found in the
way, though they were willing to open all. They, and some of the
sheriffs’ men, spoiled, robbed, and carried away all the books and
manuscripts they found, with household stuff, your petitioner’s
apparel, arms, and other things; so that they left nothing that liked
them; notwithstanding your petitioner’s wife told the sheriffs, they
might come to reckon for it. They carried also a great number of
divers of your petitioner’s books, and other things, from one Mr.
Archer’s house, as he will testify.
“Farther, your petitioner being denied the copy of his commitment,
by the jailor of Newgate, his wife, with some friends, repaired to the
sheriff, offering him bail, according to the statute in that behalf;
which being shewed by an attorney at law, the sheriff replied, that
he wished the laws of the land, and privileges of the subject, had
never been named in the parliament, &c. Your petitioner (having
thus suffered in body, liberty, family, estate, and house) at the end
of fifteen weeks was served with a subpœna, on information laid
against him by Sir Robert Heath, then his Majesty’s attorney general;
whose dealing with your prisoner was full of cruelty and deceit. In
the mean time it did more than appear, to four physicians, that
poison had been given him in Newgate; for his hair and skin came
off in a sickness (deadly to the eye) in the height whereof, as he did
lie, censure was passed against him in the star chamber, without
hearing (which had not been heard of) notwithstanding of a
certificate from four physicians, and affidavit made by an attorney, of
the desperateness of the disease. But nothing would serve Dr. Laud,
but the highest censure that ever was passed in that court to be put
upon him; and so it was to be inflicted with knife, fire, and whip, at
and upon the pillory, with ten thousand pounds fine; which some of
the lords conceived should never be inflicted, only it was imposed
(as on a dying man) to terrify others. But the said doctor and his
combinants, caused the said censure to be executed the 26th day of
November following (with a witness) for the hang-man was armed
with strong drink all the night before in prison, and, with threatning
words, to do it cruelly. Your petitioner’s hands being tied to a stake
(besides all other torments) he received thirty-six stripes with a
treble cord; after which, he stood almost two hours on the pillory, in
cold frost and snow, and suffered the rest; as cutting off the ear,
firing the face, and slitting of the nose; so that he was made a
theatre of misery to men and angels.” [Here the compassion of the
house of commons was so great, that they were generally in tears,
and ordered the clerk to stop reading twice, till they had recovered
themselves.] “And being so broken with his sufferings, that he was
not able to go, the warden of the Fleet would not suffer him to be
carried in a coach: but he was forced to go by water, to the farther
endangering of his life; returning to the jail after much harsh and
cruel usage, for the space of eight years, paying more for a chamber
than the worth of it (having not a bit of bread, nor a drop of water
allowed). The clerk of the Fleet, to top up your petitioner’s
sufferings, sent for him to his office, and without warrant, or cause
given by your petitioner, set eight strong fellows upon him, who tore
his clothes, bruised his body, so that he was never well, and carried
him by head and heels to that loathsome and common gaol; where,
besides the filthiness of the place, and vileness of the company,
divers contrivances were laid for taking away the life of your
petitioner, as shall manifestly appear, if your honours will be pleased
to receive and peruse a schedule of that subject.
“Now the cause of all this harsh, cruel, and continued ill usage,
unparalleled yet upon any one since Britain was blessed with
christianity, was nothing but a book written by your petitioner, called
“Sion’s Plea against the Prelacy; and that, by the call of divers and
many good Christians in the parliament time, after divers refusals
given by your petitioner; who would not publish it being done, till it
had the view and approbation of the best in the city, country, and
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