as, Walter Lane, Roger Rippon, Daniel Studley, Nicholas Lee, Christopher Bowman, and Geo. Kniston.

Another long, respectful, earnest, and very able petition, was addressed to the queen's privy council, about this time, probably by the Separatists who were then at liberty. In this Barrowe and Greenwood are particularly referred to, and also, the second arrest of Mr. Greenwood, with Francis Johnson, in a private house, about December, 1592.*

This petition sets forth the hearty agreement of the petitioners with the church of England in their doctrinal belief; their entire loyalty to the queen, and readiness to obey governors, and reverence .superiors, and their "innocency in all good conversation towards all men." Their ecclesiastical views they declare to be derived entirely from the holy Scriptures, which her majesty had published and exhorted her subjects to read diligently and obey sincerely. They then detail the persecutions and sufferings to which they were subjected by "the Romish prelacy and priesthood left in the land;" who, they say, are their "only special adversaries ;" and appeal to the council for protection and relief, and beg for a fair hearing.

But all appeals for relief or for a fair hearing were utterly vain. The nearest approach to a "free, Christian conference" ever allowed the poor

* Strype's Ann., iv, No. 62.

suffering men and women who were starving, and freezing, and rotting in the filthy, infectious prisons of London and vicinity was this: Certain bishops were directed by "the bishop of London, by order of the archbishop of Canterbury, and with advice of both chief justices, to repair to those prisons and prisoners" which were assigned to them " and seek by all learned and discreet demeanour to reduce them from their errors;" and "that either their conformity or disobedience might be made manifest when they came to trial," these visitors were required "to set down in writing" the particular days on which these visits were made, and the details of their conversations; so that, if there was occasion to use their testimony, the visitors might be sworn. Or, in plain English: the bishops, like the Pharisees of old in their dealings with Christ, took counsel how they might entangle these prisoners in their talk, and sent unto them their disciples for this purpose, directing a careful record to be made of these conversations, that afterwards they might be sworn to if necessary, in order to reach the lives of these innocent persons. Such was the Christianity of Elizabeth's Hierarchy!

Some puritan ministers seem also to have been employed in this dishonorable business. The Rev. Stephen Edgerton, according to Brook, (11. 289,) was thus employed. And, if we may credit Sir Geo. Paule (Life of Whitgift, p. 66), Cartwright

*Waddington's Penry, 106. Strype, ut sup.

himself was once sent to Barrowe and Greenwood, on a like errand. But one interview with these brave, clearheaded men is said to have satisfied him, and he could not be induced to repeat his visit.

The last and most interesting, if not most important paper which emanated from Barrowe or Greenwood was a long letter from Barrowe, addressed to an "Honorable Lady and Countess of his Kindred." Though a private letter, it soon found its way into print; and from it are derived many important details of their history.

Though this letter has been already quoted very freely in these pages, for the facts which it contains, it would be, inexcusable not to give some further extracts from its eloquent and affecting pages. It was first published by Ainsworth in his "Apologie or Defense of such true Christians as are commonly (but unjustly) called Brownists," in 1604.*

"To the Right Honorable, etc.

Though it be no new or strange doctrine unto you, right honorable and excellent lady, who have been so educated and exercised in the faith and fear of God, that the cross should be joined to the gospel, tribulation and persecution to the faith and profession of Christ, yet may this seem strange unto you, and almost incredible, that in a land

* See also Hanbury, 1. 49, note; Hidden Church, pp. 78-91.

professing Christ, such cruelty should be offered unto the servants of Christ, for the truth and gospel's sake, and that by the chief ministers of the church, as they pretend. This no doubt doth make sundry, otherwise well affected, to think hardly of us and of our cause; and specially, finding us, by their instigation, indicted, arraigned, and condemned, and ready to be executed by the secular powers, for moving sedition and disobedience, for defaming the renowned person and government of our most gracious sovereign, Queen Elizabeth, and this State. But, right honorable, if our adversaries' proceedings, and our sufferings, with the true causes thereof, might be duly expended by the Scriptures, I doubt not but their malice and our innocence should easily appear to all men; howsoever now they think to cover the one and the other, by adding slander unto violence.

"Your Ladyship readeth, that the holy prophets who spake in the name of God, yea our blessed Saviour himself and his apostles, have suffered like usage, under the same pretence of sedition, innovation, rebellion against Cesar and the State, at the hands and by the means of the chief ministers of that Church, the Priests, Scribes, and Pharisees; men of no less account for holiness, learning and authority than these our adversaries. The faithful of all ages since, that have witnessed against the malignant synagogue of Antichrist, and stood for the gospel of Christ, have suffered like usage at the bands of this same prelacy and clergy, that is

sons.

now in the land, though possessed of other perThe quarrel yet remaineth betwixt the two opposite Kingdoms of Christ and Antichrist; and so long shall endure as any part of the apostacy and usurped tyranny of the man of sin shall remain.

"The apostacy and tyranny of Antichrist, as it sprang not at once or in a day, but by degrees wrought from his mystery to his manifestation and exaltation in his throne, so was he not at once wholly abolished or discovered; but as Christ, from time to time, by the beams of his appearing, discovered the iniquity, so by the power of his word, which cannot be made of none effect, doth he abolish the same, and shall not cease this war until Antichrist, with his army, power, and mystery be wholly cast out of the Church.

"While then we be, in the mercies of God, holding the most holy and glorious cause of Christ against them, that he might reign in his church by such officers and laws as he hath prescribed in his Testament; we fear not our adversaries in anything, knowing that their malice and opposition herein is made to them a token of perdition, and to us of salvation, and that of God. For this cause we are bold, both to stand for the holy ministry, government and ordinances of Christ, prescribed in his word; and also to withstand and witness against this antichristian hierarchy of the prelacy and clergy of this land, in their ministry, ministration, government, courts, officers, canons,