act of the General Assembly, which was afterwards ratified and confirmed by the Parliament of Scotland. By this it was enacted, that the king should have the calling of all General Assemblies; that the bishops or their deputies should be perpetual moderators of the diocesan synods; that no excommunication or absolution should be pronounced without their approbation; that all presentations of benefices should be made by them, and that the deprivation or suspension of ministers should belong to them; that every minister, at his admission to a benefice, should take the oath of supremacy, and canonical obedience; that the visitation of the diocese should be performed by the bishop or his deputy only; and finally, that the bishop should be moderator of all conventions for exercisings or prophesyings, which should be held within their bounds. This service advanced Dr. Abbot's character very high in the opinion of king James, and an incidental affair about this time brought him yet more into favour. While he was at Edinburgh, a prosecution was commenced against one George Sprot, notary of Aymouth, for having been concerned in Gowrie's conspiracy eight years before, for which he was now tried before sir William Hart, lord justice general of Scotland, and condemned and executed. A long account of the affair was drawn up by the judge, and a narrative prefixed by Dr. Abbot unfolding the precise nature of the conspiracy, about the reality of which doubts had previously been entertained, and perhaps were afterwards. Dr. Robertson and Guthrie, however, are botlı persuaded of the authenticity of the generally-received account. Soon after this, the king being engaged in the mediation of peace between the crown of Spain and the United Provinces, by which the sovereignty of the latter was to be acknowledged by the former, he demanded the advice of the convocation then sitting, as to the lawfulness of espousing the cause of the States; but, instead of a direct answer, the members entered upon a wide field of discussion, which excited new jealousies and apprehensions. On this occasion the king wrote a confidential letter to Abbot, reflecting on the convocation for not being more explicit in their answer to his question, "how far a Christian and a Protestant king may concur to assist his neighbours to shake off their obedience to their own sovereign *?" It * This curious letter was first published during the dispute between dean VOL. I. Sherlock and his adversaries on his taking the oaths to king William, in C does not appear what effect this letter produced; but Dr. Abbot now stood so high in his majesty's favour, that on the death of Dr. Overton, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, he promoted him to the vacant see, May 27, 1609, and he was consecrated Dec. 3. Before he had held this above a month, he was translated to the bishoprick of London, and confirmed Jan. 20, 1609-10. During the short time that he held the bishoprick of London, he distinguished himself by the diligent performance of his function, and by frequent preaching, and patronizing learning and learned men. In private life he was equally noted for ardent piety, generosity, and gentleness of manners. 1 the New Observer, vol. III. No. 12, the author of which tells us, the original is in the hands of an eminent person; the four last lines in the king's own hand, and the rest in the secretary's: "Good Dr. Abbot, "I cannot abstain to give you my judgment on the proceedings in the convocation, as you will call it; and both as rex in solio, and unus gregis in ecclesia, I am doubly concerned. My title to the crown nobody calls in question, but they that love neither you nor me, and you may guess whom I mean: all that you and your brethren have said of a king in possession (for that word, I tell you, is no more than that you make use of in your canon) concerns not me at all. I am the next heir, and the crown is mine by all rights you can name, but that of conquest; and Mr. Solicitor has sufficiently expressed my own thoughts concerning the nature of kingship, and concerning the nature of it ut in mea persona; and I believe you were all of his opinion; at least, none of you said any thing contrary to it at the time he spoke to you from me: but you know all of you, as I think, that my reason of calling you together was to give your judgments how far a Christian and a Protestant king may concur to assist his neighbours to shake off their obedience to their own sovereign, upon account of oppression, tyranny, or what else you please to name it. In the late queen's time, this kingdom was very free in assisting the Hollanders both with arms and advice; and none of your coat ever told me that any scrupled at it in her reign. Upon my coming to England, you may know that it came from some of yourselves to raise scruples about this matter; and albeit I have often told my mind concerning jus regium in subditos, as in May last, in the star-chamber, upon the occasion of Hale's pamphlet; yet I never took any notice of these scruples, till the affairs of Spain and Holland forced me to it. All my neighbours call on me to concur in the treaty between Holland and Spain; and the honour of the nation will not suffer the Hollanders to be abandoned, especially after so much money and men spent in their quarrel; therefore I was of the mind to call my clergy together, to satisfy not so much me, as the world about us, of the justness of my owning the Hollanders at this time. This I needed not to have done, and you have forced me to say, I wish I had not; you have dipped too deep in what all kings reserve among the arcana imperii; and whatever aversion you may profess against God's being the author of sin, you have stumbled upon the threshold of that opinion, in saying upon the matter, that even tyranny is God's authority, and should be remembered as such. If the king of Spain should return to claim his old pontifical right to my kingdom, you leave me to seek for others to fight for it; for you tell us upon the matter beforehand, his authority is God's authority if he prevail. "Mr. Doctor, I have no time to express my mind further on this theory business; I shall give you my orders about it by Mr. Solicitor, and until then, meddle no more in it; for they are edge tools, or rather like that weapon that is said to cut with one edge, and cure with the other. I commit you to God's protection, good Dr. Abbot, and rest your good friend, JAMES R." In the following year he was preferred to the see of Canterbury, and confirmed April 9, and on the 23d of June he was sworn of his majesty's most honourable privycouncil. At this time he was in the highest favour both with prince and people, and appears to have taken an active part in all the great transactions in church and state. Although not thought excessively fond of power, or desirous of carrying his prerogative, as primate of England, to an extraordinary height, yet he was resolute in maintaining the rights of the high commission court, and would not submit to lord Coke's prohibitions. In the case of Vorstius, his conduct was more singular. Vorstius had been appointed to a professorship in the university of Leyden, and was a noted Arminian. King James, by our archbishop's advice, remonstrated with the States on this appointment; and the consequence was that Vorstius was banished by the synod of Dort, as will appear more at length in his life. This conduct on the part of the archbishop alarmed those who were favourers of Arminianism, and who dreaded Calvinism from its supposed influence on the security of the church; but their fears as far as he was concerned appear to have been groundless, his attachment to the church of England remaining firm and uniform. He had soon, however, another opportunity of testifying his dislike of the Arminian doctrines. The zeal which the king had shewn for removing, first Arminius, and then Vorstius, had given their favourers in Holland so much uneasiness, that the celebrated Grotius, the great champion of their cause, was sent over to England to endeavour to mitigate the King's displeasure, and, if possible, to give him a better opinion of the Remonstrants, as they then began to be called. On this occasion the archbishop wrote an account of Grotius and his negociation in a letter to sir Ralph Winwood, in which he treats Grotius with very little ceremony. For this he has met with an advocate in archdeacon Blackburn, who, in his Confessional, observes in his behalf, that "his disaffection to Grotius was owing to the endeavours and proposals of the latter, towards a coalition of the Protestants and Papists, which every wise and consistent Protestant, in every period since the Reformation, as well as Abbot, has considered as a snare, and treated accordingly." C2 Another affair which occurred in 1613, created no little perplexity to our archbishop, while it afforded him an opportunity of evincing a decidedness of character not common at that period. This was the case of divorce between lady Frances Howard, daughter to the earl of Suffolk, and Robert, earl of Essex, her husband, which has always been considered as one of the greatest blemishes of king James's reign. The part Abbot took in this matter displayed his unshaken and incorruptible integrity; and he afterwards published his reasons for opposing the divorce, as a measure tending to encourage public licentiousness. If this conduct displeased the king, he does not appear to have withdrawn his favour from the archbishop, as in 1615 he promoted his brother, Robert, to the see of Salisbury. The archbishop was less prudent in recommending to the king, George Villiers, afterwards the celebrated duke of Buckingham; but of this he lived to repent, and to leave a satisfactory vindication. Towards the close of 1616, the learned Antonio de Dominis, archbishop of Spalato, took shelter in England, from the persecution with which he was threatened by the Pope, for discovering his dislike both of the doctrine and discipline of the church of Rome, and was very kindly received by his majesty, and hospitably entertained by the archbishop. It was by his means that the archbishop got Father Paul's History of the Council of Trent transmitted into this country. Mr. Nathaniel Brent was employed on this service, and succeeded in procuring the whole of the manuscript, although with some hazard to himself. In 1618, while lamenting the death of his brother the bishop of Salisbury, which happened in March of that year, he encountered a fresh anxiety from the king's declaration for permitting sports and pastimes on the Lord's day. This declaration, usually called the Book of Sports, was ordered to be read in the churches; but the archbishop, being at Croydon when it came thither, had the courage to forbid its being read. In 1619 he executed a design which he had long formed, of founding an hospital at Guildford, where, on the 5th of April, he was present when sir Nicholas Kempe laid the first stone. The archbishop endowed it with lands to the value of three hundred pounds per annum: one hundred of which was to be employed in setting the poor to work, and the remainder for the maintenance of a master, twelve brothers, and eight sisters, who were to have blue clothes, and gowns of the same colour, and half-a-crown a week each. Oct. 29, being the anniversary of the archbishop's birth, is commemorated at Guildford; and the archbishop of Canterbury for the time being is visitor of the hospital. Towards the end of this year, the Elector Palatine accepted of the crown of Bohemia, which occasioned great disputes in king James's councils. Some were desirous that his majesty should not interfere in this matter, foreseeing that it would produce a war in Germany; others were of opinion, that natural affection to his son and daughter, and a just concern for the Protestant interest, ought to engage him to support the new election. The latter was the archbishop's sentiment; and not being able at that time to attend the privy council, he wrote his mind with great boldness and freedom to the secretary of state. The archbishop, now in a declining state of health, used in the summer to go to Hampshire for the sake of recreation; and, being invited by lord Zouch to hunt in his park at Branzill, he met there with the greatest misfortune that ever befel him; for he accidentally killed that nobleman's keeper, by an arrow from a cross-bow, which he shot at one of the deer. This accident threw him into a deep melancholy; and he ever afterwards kept a monthly fast on Tuesday, the day on which this fatal mischance happened. He also settled an annuity of 20l. on the widow. There were several persons who took advantage of this misfortune, to lessen him in the king's favour; but his majesty said, "An angel might have miscarried in this sort." But his enemies representing, that, having incurred an irregularity, he was thereby incapacitated for performing the offices of a primate, the king directed a commission to ten persons, to inquire into this matter. The points referred to their decision were, 1. Whether the archbishop was irregular by the fact of involuntary homicide ? 2. Whether that act might tend to scandal in a churchman? 3. How his grace should be restored, in case the commissioners should find him irregular? All agreed, that it could not be otherwise done, than by restitution from the king; but they varied in the manner. The bishop of Winchester, the lord chief justice, and Dr. Steward, thought it should be done by the king, and by him alone. The lord keeper, and the bishops of London, Rochester, Exeter, and St. David's, were for a commission from the king directed to some bishops. |