worst of all tempers." In November, 1607, Laud, aged thirty-four, received his first preferment-the vicarage of Stamford, in Northamptonshire; and in the April following, the advowson of North Kilworth, in Leicestershire. In the summer of 1608 he proceeded to the degree of D.D., and was made chaplain to Dr. Neile, Bishop of Rochester. To be near him he exchanged his living of North Kilworth in October, 1609, for the rectory of West Tilbury, in Essex. In May, 1610, he was presented by the Bishop of Rochester to the living of Cuckstone in Kent. He then resigned his fellowship in St. John's and lived at Cuckstone, but the place was unhealthy, and he was laid up with ague. Bishop Neile was translated to Lichfield, and, before leaving Rochester, obtained from the king for his friend Laud a prebend's stall in Westminster. Dr. Neile's successor at Rochester was another hearty friend of Laud's--his old tutor, Dr. Buckeridge, who left the Presidency of St. John's College to take the bishopric. Dr. Buckeridge and Dr. Neile exerted all their influence to secure Dr. Laud's election to the vacant Presidency, and obtained it in May, 1611, against strong opposition based on the opinion that Laud was "a Papist at heart, and cordially addicted to Popery." King James presently appointed Dr. Laud one of his chaplains. After the death, in November, 1610, of Archbishop Richard Bancroft, he was succeeded in the primacy by George Abbot, a man moderate of temper and strict Calvinist in his opinions, who reversed, as far as he could, the policy by which Bancroft had driven many of the clergy from the Church. The new primate considered Laud's opinions too near to those of the Roman Church. It was he, indeed, who in opposing Laud's election to the Presidency of St. John's, had described him as a Papist at heart. Laud was neglected at court for some time, but his friend Dr. Neile gave him a prebend in Lincoln, and in December, 1615, the archdeaconry of Huntingdon, and in 1616 King James made Dr. Laud Dean of Gloucester. Dr. Miles Smith, one of the producers of King James's authorised version of the Bible, was then Bishop of Gloucester, and openly expressed his indignation at the proceedings of the new Dean in changing the place of the communion-table, and so ordering the services that tumult arose against Popish revival, the civil authority had to interfere, and some rioters had to be sent to prison. Laud then returned to court, and took part in action against the Oxford Puritans. In 1617 Dr. Laud went with King James to Scotland, and urged the enforcement of a Liturgy upon the Scotch. Five Articles were then forced by King James on an unwilling people. These were, kneeling at sacrament, observation of Christmas and other holy days, episcopal confirmations, private baptism, and private communion. In June, 1618, King James's declaration concerning lawful sports and games on the Lord's Day was also introduced into Scotland. It would need force to supersede among the Scottish people one prejudice with another, and this was not tried till the reign of Charles. The outward conflict was about symbols that many on both sides held to be in themselves indifferent, but to the ignorant the symbols were in place of the things

signified. "Yet was there great confusion," wrote David Calderwood, "great confusion and disorder in many kirks, by reason of the late innovation. In some kirks the people went out and left the minister alone; in some, when the minister would have them to kneel, the ignorant and simple sort cried out, 'The danger, if any be, light upon your own soul, and not upon ours." Some, when they could not get the sacrament sitting, departed, and besought God to be judge between them and the minister. It is not to be passed over in silence, how that when John Lauder, minister at Cockburnspeth, was reaching the bread till1 one kneeling, a black dog start up to snatch it out of his hand."

King James used to say to Laud that he had given him nothing but the Deanery of Gloucester, " a shell without a kernel;" but in 1621 Laud was nominated to the bishopric of St. David's. Archbishop Abbot in that year, while on a visit to Lord Zouch at Bramhill, by chance hit one of the gamekeepers, who was concealed in a thicket, when he had levelled his crossbow at a deer. The man died, and although the Archbishop, deeply afflicted, was cleared of blame by a Commission, and received a full pardon under the Great Seal, declaring him capable of exercising his ecclesiastical authority as if the accident had not occurred, Laud and three other nominated bishops objected to be consecrated by him. They were consecrated by a commission of five bishops appointed to act in the place of the Primate.

It

When Laud was thus made bishop the "Pilgrim Fathers," first driven from this country by the policy of Archbishops Whitgift and Bancroft, had just established themselves at New Plymouth. A separatist or Brownist congregation-following the counsel of Robert Brown to form, apart from the authorised worship, separate and independent Churches on a Scripture model--had met at the village of Scrooby, in Nottinghamshire, on the Yorkshire border. met at an episcopal manor house which had come to be used as a station for post-horses, and was occu pied by William Brewster as postmaster. John Robinson was its minister, William Brewster its ruling elder, and a youth named William Bradford walked in from the neighbouring hamlet of Austerfield to worship there. Bradford's heart had been first stirred by the preaching of Richard Clifton, rector of Babworth, near Scrooby. When Clifton was silenced as a Puritan, young Bradford, indignant at this act of oppression, declared himself a Separatist, and joined the congregation of John Robinson at Scrooby, where his energy soon made him the civil head of the community, and he took afterwards his place in history as Governor Bradford of New Plymouth. John Smith, pastor of a Separatist congregation at Gainsborough, had removed his church to Amsterdam to avoid persecution, and he had been preceded by another minister---his tutor, Johnson. Disputes arose among the people at Amsterdam, and when the refugee Church of Scrooby joined them in 1608, the dissension caused John Robinson to remove with his followers to Leyden,

1 Till, to.

2 Start, for started; the ed being dropped after the ending in t.

where they remained eleven years in peace. But the desire grew in them to found an easier and happier society than they could have as exiles in a foreign town, where men bred to English husbandry must learn town ways of earning their bread among strangers; William Bradford had become a silk dyer, William Brewster a printer. Colonisation was then, in England and elsewhere, occupying energetic thought. John Robinson and his congregation of three hundred resolved to live no longer among foreigners, but to go out and found in the New World an English province in which their religion should be free. They sought in vain an Act of toleration from the king. While they were negotiating, the Puritans of Lancashire were forced, by a royal declaration, to conform, or leave the kingdom; but by the help of Sir Edwin Sandys (to whose brother the Scrooby manor house belonged), the English congregation at Leyden obtained a patent from the Virginia Company. They bought in London the Speedwell, a vessel of about sixty tons, and hired in England the Mayflower, a vessel of 180 tons, brought these little ships to Delft Haven, and there embarked in them, on the 22nd of July, 1620, as many of the congregation as they would contain. William Brewster went as their leader, William Bradford and Miles Standish being of the company. John Robinson, their pastor, stayed with those who were left, and blessed the departing vessels from the shore. "I charge you," he said, in his solemn farewell, "I charge you before God and His blessed angels, that you follow me no farther than you have seen me follow the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of His Holy Word. I cannot sufficiently bewail the condition of the Reformed Churches, who are come to a period in Religion, and will go at present no farther than the instruments of their Reformation. Luther and Calvin were great and shining lights in their times, yet they penetrated not into the whole counsel of God. I beseech you remember it -'tis an article of your Church-covenant-that you be ready to receive whatever truth shall be made known to you from the written Word of God." On the 11th of December, 1620, after various explorations for a fitting place of settlement, the Pilgrims landed where they could resolve to moor the Mayflower and begin a settlement, which they calledafter the last bit of England they had received kindness from at their departure-Plymouth. Every man of them built his own house in hard winter weather. The Governor first appointed was among its victims; his son died when they landed, he died himself soon after, and the bereaved wife and mother quickly followed. At the end of March, 1621, William Bradford became his successor. Until the harvest of 1623 the infant colony that was to develop into a new world of English energy and freedom suffered much from want. Food was obtained from ships at famine prices, and there is a tradition that at one time there was only a pint of corn in the place, and that, being divided with strict justice, gave to each inhabitant five kernels.

In November, 1621, Laud was consecrated Bishop of St. David's. After maintaining his cause in

Parliament, he went to his see, and had its income improved by the king's presentation to a rectory— that of Creeke in Northamptonshire-which was to be held with it. In August, 1622, he was at court again, ready with aid and encouragement to any contest against Puritanism. Laud was thoroughly in earnest, thoroughly honest, and as religious as a man can be who battles for that which he holds to be the highest truth in a breast-plate of righteousness that is not tempered with charity. Bulstrode Whitelock said of him truly, that "he was too full of fire, though a just and good man; and his want of experience in State matters, and his too much zeal for the Church, and heat, if he proceeded in the way he was then in, would set this nation on fire." When, in May, 1622, John Fisher, the Jesuit who had been hoping to convert the Duchess (then the Marchioness) of Buckingham to Romanism, was invited to argue openly before the Duke with an English divine, Dr. Francis White was the divine appointed. They argued twice, and as, on both occasions, nothing had been said on the dogma of an infallible church, the king appointed a third meeting, at which Laud was appointed to argue, and was held to have confuted Fisher. He wrote of his argument afterwards: "The Catholic Church of Christ is neither Rome nor a conventicle; out of that there is no salvation, I easily confess it; but out of Rome there is, and out of a conventicle too. Salvation is not shut up into this narrow conclave. In this discourse I have, therefore, endeavoured to lay open those wider gates of the Catholic Church, confined to no age, time, or place, not knowing any bounds, but that faith which was once, and but once for all, delivered to the saints. And in my pursuit of this way, I have searched after, and delivered with a single heart, that truth which I profess." In June, 1622, the Marquis of Buckingham appointed Laud his chaplain, who became his confidential agent in London during the secret visit to Spain with Prince Charles, arising out of the question of the Spanish match. After the death of James I., on the 24th of March, 1625, Laud remained firm in the patronage of the Duke of Buckingham, who was the new king's favourite. Thus Laud became upon church matters the chief adviser of Charles I. He drew up the list from which the new king was to appoint chaplains free from Puritanism. He preached at the opening of Parliament, and as the Archbishop of Canterbury, who would place the crown on Charles's head, happened to be also Dean of Westminster, and in that character had also duties at the coronation, Laud was appointed to supply his place as dean. was afterwards urged against him that at the coronation he caused a silver crucifix found among the regalia to be placed upon the altar, and modified, in two places, the coronation oath. Laud preached, four days after the coronation, at the opening of the second Parliament. He dwelt upon unity. "Would you," he said, "keep the State in unity? In any case, take heed of breaking the peace of the Church. The peace of the State depends much upon it: for, divide Christ in the minds of men, or divide the minds of men about their hopes of salvation in Christ, and then tell me where will be the unity?"

And so he gave his influence in aid of the old policy of compulsion. In 1626 William Laud was translated from his see of St. David's to that of Bath and Wells, was made also Dean of the Chapel Royal, and a Privy Councillor. In July, 1628, he was translated from the bishopric of Bath and Wells to that of London; in April, 1630, Laud was made Chancellor of the University of Oxford; in July, 1630, as Dean of the Chapel Royal, he baptized the infant who afterwards became Charles II. In the same year, a Scotch minister, Alexander Leighton, father to the more famous Robert Leighton, personally presented to members of the House of Commons a book he had written, called "An Appeal to Parliament, or Zion's Plea again Prelacy." He was sentenced by the Star Chamber to a fine of £10,000 and imprisonment for life, then transferred to the High Court of Commission to be degraded from his ministerial office, because the Star Chamber could not pass sentence of corporal punishment upon a man in orders. Having been degraded by the High Commission, he was returned to the Star Chamber, where he was further sentenced to be pilloried at Westminster during the sitting of the court, and there whipped; after the whipping to have one of his ears cut off, his nose slit, his forehead branded with S.S. for Seditious Slanderer,' and then to be taken to his prison, whence at another time he was to be conveyed to the pillory in Cheapside, where his other ear was to be cut off and he was again to be whipped. Leighton's imprisonment lasted for ten years, until he was released by the Long Parliament in 1640. Alexander Leighton was then made keeper of Lambeth Palace, after Laud had been imprisoned in the Tower; but Leighton died insane in 1645. In 1633, William Prynne, a Puritan barrister, published against stage plays, masques, and dances his "HistrioMastix." It denounced masques and dances in terms that could be said to involve the queen in their condemnation. Therefore he was committed to the Tower. In the same year, 1633, Laud, Bishop of London, went with Charles I. into Scotland, and helped to impose a liturgy upon the Scottish Church against the will of the people; and in August of that year Dr. Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, whose resistance to the policy of compulsion had withdrawn him from royal favour, died. Laud was immediately appointed his successor. At the same time he had secret offer of a cardinal's hat through a person to whom he records in his diary that he answered, "Something dwelt within him which would not suffer that, till Rome was otherwise than it was at the present time." Laud at once pursued his policy with excess of zeal. The "Declaration concerning

1 Or Sower of Sedition. When Prynne had been branded on the cheek with S. L. (Seditious Libeller), he made these lines on his way back in a boat to the Tower:

"S. L. STIGMATA LAUDIS.

"Stigmata maxillis referens insignia Laudis Exultans remeo, victima grata Deo."

Which was Englished:

"S. L. LAUD'S SCARS.

"Triumphant I return, my face descries

Laud's scorching scars, God's grateful sacrifice."

Ovr Deare Father of blessed Memory, in his returne from Scotland, comming through Lancashire, found that his Subiects were debarred from Lawful Recreations vpon Sundayes after Euening Prayers ended, and vpon Holy dayes: And Hee prudently considered, that if these times were taken from them, the meaner sort who labour hard all the weeke, should haue no Recreations at all to refresh their spirits. And after His returne, Hee farther saw that His loyall Subiects in all other parts of His Kingdome did suffer in the same kinde, though perhaps not in the same degree: And did therefore in His Princely wisedome, publish a Declaration to all his louing Subiects concerning lawfull Sports to be vsed at such times, which was printed and published by His royall Commandement in the yeere 1618. In the Tenor which hereafter followeth.

By the King.

Whereas vpon Our returne the last yere out of Scotland, We did publish Our Pleasure touching the recreations of Our people in those parts vnder Our hand: For some causes Vs thereunto moouing, Wee haue thought good to command these Our Directions then giuen in Lancashire with a few words thereunto added, and most appliable to these parts of Our Realmes, to bee published to all Our Subiects.

Whereas Wee did iustly in Our Progresse through Lancashire, rebuke some Puritanes and precise people, and tooke order that the like vnlawfull carriage should not bee vsed by any of them hereafter, in the prohibiting and vnlawfull punishing of Our good people for vsing their lawfull Recrea

tions, and honest exercises vpon Sundayes and other Holy dayes, after the afternoone Sermon or Seruice: Wee now finde that two sorts of people wherewith that Countrey is much infected, (Wee meane Papists and Puritanes) haue maliciously traduced and calumniated those Our iust and honourable proceedings. And therefore lest Our reputation might vpon the one side (though innocently) haue some aspersion layd vpon it, and that vpon the other part Our good people in that Countrey be misled by the mistaking and misinterpretation of Our meaning: We haue therefore thought good hereby to cleare and make Our pleasure to be manifested to all Our good People in those parts.

It is true that at Our first entry to this Crowne, and Kingdome, Wee were informed, and that too truely, that Our County of Lancashire abounded more in Popish Recusants then any County of England, and thus hath still continued since to Our great regreet, with little amendmēt, saue that now of late, in Our last riding through Our said County, Wee find both by the report of the Iudges, and of the Bishop of that diocesse, that there is some amendment now daily beginning, which is no small contentment to Vs.

The report of this growing amendment amongst them, made Vs the more sorry, when with Our owne Eares We heard the generall complaint of Our people, that they were barred from all lawfull Recreation, & exercise vpon the Sundayes afternoone, after the ending of all Diuine Seruice, which cannot but produce two euils: The one, the hindering of the conuersion of many, whom their Priests will take occasion hereby to vexe, perswading them that no honest mirth or recreation is lawful or tolerable in Our Religion, which cannot but breed a great discontentment in Our peoples hearts, especially of such as are peraduenture vpon the point of turning; The other inconuenience is, that this prohibition barreth the common and meaner sort of people from vsing such exercises as may make their bodies more able for Warre, when Wee or Our Successours shall haue occasion to vse them. And in place thereof sets vp filthy tiplings and drunkennesse, & breeds a number of idle and discontented speeches in their Alehouses. For when shall the common people haue leaue to exercise, if not vpon the Sundayes & holydaies, seeing they must apply their labour, & win their liuing in all working daies?

Our expresse pleasure therefore is, that the Lawes of Our Kingdome, & Canons of Our Church be as well obserued in that Countie, as in all other places of this Our Kingdome. And on the other part, that no lawfull Recreation shall bee barred to Our good People, which shall not tend to the breach of Our aforesayd Lawes, and Canons of Our Church: which to expresse more particularly, Our pleasure is, That the Bishop, and all other inferiour Churchmen, and Churchwardens, shall for their parts bee carefull and diligent, both to instruct the ignorant, and conuince and reforme them that are mis-led in Religion, presenting them that will not conforme themselues, but obstinately stand out to Our Iudges and Iustices: Whom We likewise command to put the Law in due execution against them.

Our pleasure likewise is, That the Bishop of that Diocesse take the like straight order with all the Puritanes and Precisians within the same, either constraining them to conforme themselues, or to leaue the County according to the Lawes of Our Kingdome, and Canons of Our Church, and so to strike equally on both hands, against the contemners of Our Authority, and aduersaries of Our Church. And as for Our good peoples lawful Recreation, Our pleasure likewise is, That after the end of Diuine Seruice, Our good people be not disturbed, letted, or discouraged from any lawful recreation, Such as dauncing, either men or women, Archery for

men, leaping, vaulting, or any other such harmelesse Recreation, nor from hauing of May-Games, Whitson Ales, and Morris-dances, and the setting vp of Maypoles & other sports therewith vsed, so as the same be had in due & conuenient time, without impediment or neglect of Diuine Seruice: And that women shall haue leaue to carry rushes to the Church for the decoring of it, according to their old custome. But withall We doe here account still as prohibited all vnlawfull games to bee vsed vpon Sundayes onely, as Beare and Bullbaitings, Interludes, and at all times in the meaner sort of people by Law prohibited, Bowling.

And likewise We barre from this benefite and liberty, all such knowne recusants, either men or women, as will abstaine from comming to Church or diuine Seruice, being therefore vnworthy of any lawfull recreation after the said Seruice, that will not first come to the Church, and serue God: Prohibiting in like sort the said Recreations to any that, though conforme in Religion, are not present in the Church at the seruice of Gon, before their going to the said Recreations. Our pleasure likewise is, That they to whom it belongeth in Office, shall present and sharpely punish all such as in abuse of this Our liberty, will vse these exercises before the ends of all Diuine Seruices for that day. And We likewise straightly command, that euery person shall resort to his owne Parish Church to heare Diuine Seruice, and each Parish by it selfe to vse the said Recreation after Diuine Seruice. Prohibiting likewise any Offensiue weapons to bee carried or vsed in the said times of Recreations. And Our pleasure is, That this Our Declaration shall bee published by order from the Bishop of the Diocesse, through all the Parish Churches, and that both Our Iudges of Our Circuit, and Our Iustices of Our Peace be informed thereof.

Giuen at Our Mannour of Greenwich the foure and twentieth day of May, in the sixteenth yeere of Our Raigne of England, France and Ireland, and of Scotland the one and fiftieth.

Now out of a like pious Care for the seruice of God, and for suppressing of any humors that oppose trueth, and for the Ease, Comfort, & Recreation of Our well deseruing People, Wee doe ratifie and publish this Our blessed Fathers Declaration: The rather because of late in some Counties of Our Kingdome, Wee finde that vnder pretence of taking away abuses, there hath been a generall forbidding, not onely of ordinary meetings, but of the Feasts of the Dedication of the Churches, commonly called Wakes. Now our expresse will and pleasure is, that these Feasts with others shall bee obserued, and that Our Iustices of the peace in their seuerall Diuisions shall looke to it, both that all disorders there, may be preuented or punished, and that all neighbourhood and freedome, with manlike and lawfull Exercises bee vsed. And Wee farther Command Our Justices of Assize in their seuerall Circuits, to see that no man doe trouble or molest any of Our loyall and duetifull people, in or for their lawful Recreations, having first done their duetie to God, and continuing in obedience to Vs and Our Lawes. And of this Wee command all our Iudges, Iustices of the Peace, as well within Liberties as without, Maiors, Bayliffes, Constables, and other Officers, to take notice of, and to see obserued, as they tender Our displeasure. And Wee farther will, that publication of this Our Command bee made by order from the Bishops through all the Parish Churches of their seuerall Diocesse respectiuely.

Giuen at Our Palace of Westminster the eighteenth day of October, in the ninth yeere of Our Reigne.

God save the King.

Laud, as Bishop of London, had severely censured the Lord Mayor for prohibiting a woman from selling apples on Sunday in St. Paul's Churchyard. His enforcement of the reading of this "Book of Sports in all the English churches was resisted by many of the clergy, who were therefore silenced. Some who read it, read the Fourth Commandment after it. Some read it unwillingly, with forced compliance to preserve their livings. William Prynne, after a year's imprisonment in the Tower, was sentenced to a fine of £5,000, to be expelled from his University, his Inn of Court, and his profession of the law; to be pilloried, first at Palace Yard, Westminster, then at Cheapside, and in each place to lose an ear; to have his book burnt before his face by the common executioner; and to be imprisoned for life. In 1637 eight ships in the Thames prepared to carry to New England refugees from the rule of compulsion, were stopped, and an Order of Council prohibited "all ministers unconformable to the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England; and that no clergyman should be suffered to pass to the foreign plantations without the approbation of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London." On the 30th of June in the same year Prynne, the lawyer, stood in the pillory again, to lose what remained of his ears, with the Rev. Henry Burton and Dr. John Bastwick, a physician, sentenced also to fine, branding, mutilation, and imprisonment. But as they went to the pillory the people had strewed sweet herbs on the way.

There had been old antagonism between William Laud and John Williams, who in 1621 succeeded Bacon as Lord Keeper, and was at the same time made Bishop of Lincoln. His opinions on public questions did not please the Court of Charles. The Duke of Buckingham had been his enemy, and he had both Charles and Laud against him. As early as 1627 an attempt had been begun to charge him with betrayal of the king's secrets. In 1637 this accusation was shifted to a charge of tampering with the king's witnesses. He was condemned, and sentenced to a fine of £10,000, suspension by the High Commission Court from all his offices, and imprisonment during the king's pleasure. His palace was entered to seize goods to the value of the fine, and a letter was there found from Lambert Osbaldistone, Master of Westminster School, in which Laud, small of stature, was referred to as "the little urchin," and "the little meddling hocus pocus." Upon this letter further proceedings were taken, and Dr. Williams was sentenced to pay £5,000 more to the king and £3,000 to the Archbishop of Canterbury; while the writer of the letter was fined £5,000 to the king, £5,000 to the Archbishop of Canterbury, deprived of his preferments, condemned to imprisonment during the king's pleasure, and to stand in the pillory with his ear nailed to the posts. Dr. Williams was not released until 1640, when he was reconciled to the king, who made him, in 1641, Archbishop of York. Laud was then in the Tower, to which he was conveyed on the 1st of March, 1641. He had tried force against force stronger than his own, and raised a tumult against prelacy. He was stripped of his revenues, heavily fined, and

harshly treated during three years of imprisonment, that ended in his trial and his execution on the 10th of January, 1645. From the scaffold Laud, seventyone years old, delivered his last words to man in the form of his own funeral sermon, on a text from the twelfth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, "Let us run with patience the race which is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith; who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." The sermon ended, this was

LAUD'S LAST PRAYER.

O Eternal God and merciful Father, look down upon me in mercy; in the riches and fulness of all thy mercies look down upon me, but not till thou hast nailed my sins to the cross of Christ. Look upon me, but not till thou hast bathed me in the blood of Christ; not till I have hid myself in the wounds of Christ; that so the punishment that is due to my sins may pass away and go over me: and since thou art pleased to try me to the uttermost, I humbly beseech thee, give me now in this great instant full patience, proportionable comfort, a heart ready to die for my sins, the King's happiness, and the preservation of this Church; and my zeal to these (far from arrogance be it spoken) is all the sin, human frailty excepted, and all incidents thereunto, which is yet known of me in this particular, for which I now come to suffer; but otherwise my sins are many and great. Lord, pardon them all, and those especially which have drawn down this present judgment upon me; and when thou hast given me strength to bear it, then do with me as seems best to thee; and carry me through death that I may look upon it in what visage soever it shall appear to me, and that there may be a stop of this issue of blood in this more than miserable kingdom. I pray for the people, too, as well as for myself. O Lord, I beseech thee, give grace of repentance to all people that have a thirst for blood; but if they will not repent, then scatter their devices, and such as are or shall be contrary to the glory of thy great name, the truth and sincerity of religion, the establishment of the King, and his posterity after him in their just rights and privileges, the honour and conservation of Parliament, in their ancient and just power, the preservation of this poor Church in the truth, peace, and patrimony, and the settlement of this distracted and distressed people under their ancient laws and in their native liberties. And when thou hast done all this in mere mercy for them, O Lord, fill their hearts with thankfulness, and with religious dutiful obedience to thee and thy commandments all their days. Amen, Lord Jesus, and I beseech thee receive my soul into thy bosom, Amen.