the usual attempts were made to ensnare him by crafty questions and make him his own accuser. Many of these questions he declined to answer. He admitted, however, that he had baptized a number of children belonging to his own congregation; that he did not account marriage a sacrament or an ecclesiastical service, or at all belonging to the ministerial function; that the Lord's supper might be received at any time of the day or night when the congregation were prepared for it; and that it was not necessary to use the very words of the Lord's prayer. He acknowledged, also, that he had persuaded others to join his congregation, and felt constrained to do that which God in his holy word required of him; and that he could not join in the ecclesiastical ministry and state of archbishops, bishops, parsons, vicars, etc., etc.*

These admissions were sufficient to doom the poor man to prolonged imprisonment. This he endured for fourteen months at least, before he was brought to trial on the statutes of 23 and 35 Elizabeth. He was then condemned as a traitor to his

tion with the examinations of the Separatists, was the Jeffreys of his age. A private letter written by a conforming clergyman of Alford, in Lincolnshire, in 1596, to "a person of quality, and preserved by Strype, thus describes his lordship: "This judge, with so much wrath, so many oaths, and such reproachful revilings on the bench, carrieth himself, that there is offence taken at it by persons of principal credit and note throughout all the circuits." Annals, iv. No. 196, p. 368.

* Brook, 11. 98.

queen, for writing, speaking and acting in opposition to the lordly assumptions of the hierarchy, and was sentenced to perpetual banishment; the statute of 23 Elizabeth, on which Greenwood, Barrowe and Penry were executed, being now so changed (as already explained) as to make perpetual banishment, with confiscation of property, the punishment for this heinous crime against the State clergy and their Establishment.

This punishment he was compelled to endure to the letter, though he urged very strong and irrefragable arguments against being made amenable to the statute of 35 Elizabeth, for retaining the queen's subjects in their obedience; among which was the fact that he had been a close prisoner, for offences charged against him, a long time before the said statute was made. But all was unavailing. The decree had gone forth. The Brownists were to be rooted out of the kingdom; and this learned and good man and loyal Englishman was compelled to abjure the realm, or linger and die in a filthy prison, or be hanged as a felon.

After the arrest of Mr. Johnson, his church continued its meetings for some three or four months, probably under the direction of the elders and deacons, aided by the more intelligent members.†

*Brook, 11. 99–101.

†The Rev. William Smyth, and Rev. Thomas Little were probably members of the church at this time.- Brook, 11. 45-48, 99, note; Hanbury, 1. 245. Buck says, "George Johnson was

They were at length, however, discovered by the pursuivants, in a wood just beyond Islington,* in the very place where a part of Mr. Rough's congregation was arrested during the reign of queen Mary. About fifty-six persons, men and women, were at this time seized and sent two and two to the different prisons in and around London. This seizure included both the elders and the deacons of the church, and probably the greater part of the active members; so that this church organization was thus effectually and speedily destroyed, for the time, by the persecuting prelates. ‡

66

Exactly how long these " men and women, young and old," and their companions in tribulation were kept "unbailably committed by the prelates or bishops of London," " lying in cold, in hunger, in dungeons, in irons," does not appear. But from their petitions, and that of their friends still at liberty, we learn that they were subjected to "miserable usage"; that some of them were "laden with as many irons as they could bear"; others were confined "among the most facinorous and vile persons," and others were "grievously beaten with cudgels," and thrown into a place called "Little Ease," for refusing to attend the prison chapel-ser

reader there in the constable's house."-Strype's Ann., Iv. No. 115; Hidden Church, 123.

*See Examination of George Johnson, supra.

† See ante, vol. 11. p. 346.

Strype's Ann., vol. iv. Nos. 61 and 62; Brook, 11. 97, 98; Hidden Church, 75. See Appendix, Note E.

vice. Whether or not they were ever arraigned for trial, we do not know for men and women were often thus tormented for months, and even years, without trial though it is probable that the leaders. were. Mr. Studley, one of their elders, we know, from an incidental remark of Johnson, was "first adjudged to death and afterwards exiled." It is likely, however, that the majority of these prisoners "for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ" were set free soon after the twentieth of May, 1593, on "abjuring the realm," or consenting to banishment with confiscation of goods. But some of them certainly were detained for many months after that date. Both the brothers Johnson, continued to languish in prison as late as July, 1594, we know not how much longer;

* See their petition in Strype's Annals, iv. No. 61; Hanbury, 1. 88-90.

↑ Johnson's "Answer to Master H. Jacobs," in Hanbury, 1. 102. This was not a solitary case. Gov. Bradford, in speaking of the sufferings of the Separatists about this time, says: "We know certainly of six that were publicly executed, besides such as died in prison;" and names Barrowe, Greenwood, Penry, William Dennis, Copping and Thacker. Further on he adds: "Though no more were publicly executed, yet sundry more were condemned, and brought to the gallows, and ascended the ladder, not knowing but they should die; and have been reprieved, and after banished; some of which we have known and often spoken with. Others have not only been forced into voluntary banishment, by great numbers, to avoid further cruelty, but divers, after long and vile imprisonment, have been forced to abjure the land by oath, never to return. In anno 1604, four persons at once were

forced to do so at a public sessions in London, or else upon refusal they were to be hanged." In Young's Chronicles, 427 and 437.

"most unchristianly entreated"; one of them, at least, "kept sometimes two days and two nights together without any manner of sustenance; sometimes twenty nights together without any bedding save a straw mat; and as long without any change of linen; in the most dark and unwholesome rooms of the prison"; none of his friends being suffered to come to him.*

The continuance of this imprisonment and its cruelty were attributed mainly, and probably with good reason, to the prelates. Francis, in a private letter to Lord Burleigh, accompanied by a petition to the queen, which he begs Burleigh to put into her highness' hands-prays him not to show any of his letters to any one; for, he says, "I scarce know any person to whom your lordship can show them, that will not make relation of it to the prelate of Canterbury and other of our adversaries; who will the more, either continue my restraint in prison or hasten the end of my days in this life." †

"The Humble Petition of John Johnson, for his two sons, Francis and George Johnson, having been close prisoners, the one [Francis] in the Clink, a year and a half, and the other in the Fleet sixteen months, only for their conscience in religion." This petition was addressed to Lord Burleigh, and bears date, "1 July, 1594." — Hidden Church, 122–24.

† Ib. 118-20. The reader will remember that Penry and Barrowe entertained the same opinion of Whitgift, "the prelate of Canterbury." Barrowe charges him, directly, with intercepting petitions addressed to the queen. - See ante, pp. 84, 91. And the conviction cannot well be avoided, that the treatment which the Johnsons and other Separatists experienced in prison was well adapted, if not expressly designed to wear out their lives.