the new King was determined to take the English Church as he found it. "Whereas," says worthy Fuller, "it was hitherto disputable whether the north, where he long lived, or the south, whither he lately came, should prevail most on the King's judgment in Church government, this doubt was now clearly decided. Henceforth many cripples in conformity were cured of their former halting therein, and such as knew not their own till they knew the King's mind in the matter, for the future quietly digested the ceremonies of the Church."[1]
James's own opinion of it all is on record clearly enough. He had already, on January 19, 1604, written to the two Universities warning them not to allow any man to "defend any heresie or maintaine any schismaticall trickes."[2] 'Now, he wrote to the Earl of Northampton:[3] "We have kept such a Revell with the Puritans here these two days as was never heard the like, quhaire I have peppered thaime as soundlie as ye have done the Papists thaire. It were no Reason that those that will refuse the airy sign of the Cross after Baptism should have their purses stuffed any more with solid and substantial crosses. They fled me so from Argument to Argument, without ever answering me directly, ut est eorum moris, as
- ↑ "Church History," Book x.
- ↑ Strype's "Whitgift," Appendix,p. 238.
- ↑ Ibid., 239. Mr.Gardiner ("History of England,"1603-1642, vol. i. p. 159 note) pointed out the absurd mistake by which this letter has been taken by its editors and by historians, as it was even by Archdeacon Perry in his "History of the Church of England," to be addressed to a Mr. Blake. Blake = black: 'Black Northampton.'
