a. 1), which provided 1) that any per son above the age of sixteen who obsti nately refused to attend divine service, and who, by printing, writing, or speech, denied her majesty's power and authority in causes ecclesiastical, and who advised persons to abstain from church or from the communion or to be present at un lawful assemblies, conventicles, or meet ings under colour or pretence of any such exercise of religion, shall be com mitted to prison until he shall conform to go to church and make submission. If a person who was convicted ander this act did not conform within three months, he was then required to abjure the realm and all other the queen's do minions for ever, and he was compelled to depart out of the kingdom at some port assigned and within such time as the justices might appoint. A person who refused to leave the country under these circumstances, or who having left it returned to it again without the queen's licence, was guilty of felony without benefit of clergy. These provisions, though directed principally against the Roman Catholics, affected the Protestant Nonconformists with equal severity.
The Nonconformists, during the age of Elizabeth, are not to be regarded as an unimportant faction. Both among the clergy and the laity they were a nume rous body ; and they would have been powerful in proportion to their numbers, had they only been more closely united among themselves. A motion, made in 1561, at the first convocation of the clergy which was held in England, to do away with the ceremonies and forms to which the Puritans objected, was lost by a majority of only one, even though the queen and the primate Parker were well known to be opposed to such a change. In the Commons the Puritan influence was strong, and they might have ex pected that their remonstrances would be listened to, and their grievances redressed. Nor would it have been a difficult matter to yield to the claims of the Noncon formists. The moderate among them sought not the overthrow of the ecclesias tical constitution, but contended merely that certain rites and observances, which they regarded as departures from the purity and simplicity of Christian woe. ship, should be dispensed with ; and, generally, that matters commonly recog nised as things indifferent should not be insisted on as indispensable. Doubtless
many were less reasonable in their de mands, and injustice and persecution tended much to increase their number, A party, at the head of which was Pro fessor Cartwright, of Cambridge, desired a change, not only in the forms of wor ship, but in church polity also, and would have substituted Presbytery in the room of Episcopacy. Another party, the Inde pendents, or Brownists, as they were then termed, wished the disseverment of the connection between church and state alto gether. Still there is every reason to believe that slight concession to the de mends of the less violent, and the display of a spirit of forbearance, would have satisfied many, would have allayed the dissatisfaction of all, and would have been the reverse of disagreeable to the country generally. Unfortunately an opposite course of policy in this and subsequent reigns was chosen ; which ultimately con ducted to a civil war, and the temporary subversion of the regal authority.
Queen Elizabeth died in 1603, and was succeeded by James VI. of Scotland. From one who like him had been the member of a Presbyterian church, and had on more than one occasion expressed his decided attachment to its principles and worship, the Nonconformists, not without reason, expected more lenient treatment than they had met with in the preceding reign. But their expectations were bitterly disappointed. In compli ance with their petitions. a conference was indeed appointed and held at Hamp ton Court, at which nine bishops and as many dignitaries were present on the one side, and four Puritan ministers, selected by James, on the other. The king him self presided and took part in the debate. But no good results ensued. The Non conformist representatives were loaded with insults, and dismissed in such a manner as might well give birth to the darkest anticipations regarding the fate of the party to which they belonged. Shortly after, a few slight alterations of the national rubric were made, and a proclamation issued requiring the strictest conformity. In 1604 the book of canons was passed by a convocation, at which Bishop Bancroft presided. [Coserrro