Nor was the reign of Elizabeth free from this per- secuting spirit. If any one refused to consent to the least ceremony in worship, he was cast into prison, where many of the most excellent men in the land per- ished. Two Protestant Anabaptists were burned*, and many banished. She also, it is said, put two Brownists to death ; and though her whole reign was distinguished for its ])olitical prosperity, yet it is evident that she did not understand the rights of conscience; for it is said that more sanguinary laws were made in her reign than in any other predecessors', and her hands were stained with tlic blood of l)oth Papists and Puritans, .lames I succeeded Elizabeth : he jiublished a proclamation com- manding all Protestants to conform strictly, and without any exception, to all the rites and ceremonies of the Church of I^ngland. Above five hundred clergymen were immediately silenced or degraded for not comply- ing. Some Avere excommunicated, and some banished tlie country. The Dissenters wore distressed, censured, and fined in the Star ("liamber. Two persons were burned for liercsy, one at Smithlield and the otlicr at Lichfield. AVorn out with endless vexations and unceasing perse- cutions, many retired into Holland, and from thence to America. It is stated by a judicious historian that, in this and some following reigns, 2"_',t((M) iiersons were bauislied from England l)y persecution to America. In Charles I's time arose the persecuting Laud, who was
the occasion of distress to numbers. Dr. Leighton, for writing a book against the hierarchy, was sentenced to a fine of £1(I,(MJ0, i)erpetual imprisonment, and whipping. He was whipped, and then he was i)laced in the pilloiy ; one of his ears was cut off; one side of his nose slit; he was branded on the cheek with a red-hot iron with the letters S. S. ; whipped a second time, and placed in the pillory. A fortnight afterwards, his sores being yet un- cured, he Iiad the other ear cut off, the other side of his nose slit, and tlie other cheek fjranded. He continued in prison till the Long Parliament set him at liberty. About four years afterwards William Prynne,a barrister, for a book he wrote against the sports on the Lord's day, was deprived from practicing at Lincoln's Inn, degraded from his degree at Oxford, set in the pillory, had his ears cut off, imprisoned for life, and fined £5000.
Nor were the Presbyterians, when their government came to be established in England, free from the charge of persecution. In 1(545 an ordinance was published subjecting all who ]ireached or wrote against the Pres- byterian ilircctory for public worship to a fine not ex- ceeding £50 ; and imprisonment for a year, for the third offence, for using the Episcopal book of Common Prayer even in a private family. In the following year the Presbyterians applied to Parliament, pressing them to enforce unifurmitij in religion, and to extirpate popery, prelacy, heresy, schism, etc., but their petition was re- jected; yet in 1648 the Parliament, ruled by them, published an ordinance against heresy, and determined that any person who maintained, puljlished, or defend- ed the following errors should suffer death. These errors were: 1. Denying the being of a God. 2. De- nying his omnipresence, omniscience, etc. 3. Denying the Trinity in any way. 4. Denying that Christ had two natures. 5. Denying the resurrection, the atone- ment, the Scriptures. In Charles H's reign the Act of Uniformity passed, by which two thousand clergy- men were deprived of their benefices. Then followed the Conventicle Act and the Oxford Act, under which, it is said, eight thousand persons were imprisoned and reduced to want, and many to the grave. In this reign, also, the Quakers were much persecuted, and numbers of them imprisoned. Thus we see how England has bled under tlie hands of bigotry and persecution; nor was toleration enjoyed until William HI came to the throne, who showed himself a warm friend to the rights of conscience. The accession of the present royal family was auspicious to religious liberty; and as their majes- ties have always befriended toleration, the spirit of per- secution has long been curbed.
4. Ii-eltmd has likewise been drenched with the blood of the Protestants, forty or fifty thousand of whom were cruelly murdered in a few days in different parts of the kingdom in the reign of Cliarles I. It began Oct. 23, 1041. Having secured the principal gentle- men, and seized their effects, they murdered the com- mon people in cold blood, forcing many thousands to fly from their houses and settlements naked into the bogs and woods, where they perished with hunger and cold. Some they whipped to death, others they stripi)ed naked, and exposed to shame, and then drove them, like lierds of swine, to perisli in the mountains : many hundreds were drowned in rivers, some had their tliroats cut, others were dismembered. AVith some the execrable villains made tliemselves spnrt, trj-- ing who could hack the deepest into an Englishman's flesh ; wives and young virgins were aluisod in the presence of their nearest relations: nay, they taught their children to st ip and kill the children of the Eng- lish, and dash out their brains against the stones. Thus many thousands were massacred in a few days, without distinction of age, sex, or quality, before they suspected their danger, or had time to provide for their defence.