Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/759

Nicholas hiillcr 749 The High Commission acted promptly and arraigned Fuller in July' upon a long list of " scandalous " things he had " factionsly and falsely "' affirmed " to the slander of the Church, to the harden- ing of the Papists " and " to the malicious impeachment of his majesty's authority in Causes Ecclesiasticall ". The case was heard before Bancroft, the archbishop, Ravis, bishop of London, and other leading men of the High Commission. Fuller however had been not less prompt than the commissioners, and before the case could be put through the necessary legal stages preceding sentence he had procured a prohibition from the King's Bench. This writ, granted by Justices Fenner and Croke in the vacation after the close of Trinity Term, forbade the Commission to proceed further against Fuller on the ground that the case should properly be heard in the King's Bench." Pending the return of the prohibition and argument in its defence (which because of the long summer vacation of the courts could not be heard till late in September) the matter perforce rested. Although the High Commission could not convict Fuller, he none the less spent the intervening months in jail at the White Lion, Southwark. 'hen the news of I-"uller's daring and its consequences reached James and his counsellors, they were angry indeed and were besides in a measure apprehensive of further developments. Lord Salisbury, the secretary of state and practical ruler of England, wrote to Sir Thomas Lake, the secretary in personal attendance upon the king, that Fuller's actions would end by afifecting the stability of the gov- ernment — '■ noe monarchy beeinge able to stand where the Churche is in anarchy". The "absurd" action of the judges in granting such a man a prohibition for so slender a reason had, he thought, " given so apt occasion to make a president for the like mischeife as in the effect thereof may be well resembled to fayre fruite gath- ered from rotten trees " ? James, too, feared evil results if the au- ' Fuller was protected until July 4, when Parliament was prorogued, by his parliamentary privilege; he was present in the Commons on July i, so cannot have been imprisoned until the second week in July. ' Dr. Gardiner states that Fuller was not imprisoned or proceeded against by the High Commission till November; but Lansdowne MSS., 11 72, says ex- plicitly that he was arraigned early in July (just after the close of Trinity Term), and in that same month secured a prohibition from the King's Bench. Here again Dr. Gardiner repeats the curious error that a prohibition and a consultation are the same. Fuller's own statement (in a paper that could hardly have been written later than the following March. 1608) that he had been in jail nine months, exactly tallies with this reading. He was certainly released for good in April, 1608. and could not have spent nine months in jail between November, 1607, and March. 1608. •■Hatfield MSS., 124. f. 135. July?. Salisbury to Lake. Draft. .•M. HIST. KtV., VOL. .I1. — 49.