IX. Truth's victories are slow. Those who begin MACKAY. Ir may be readily believed, that the officers of the crown had considerable difficulty to secure a conviction, on any plausible grounds, against Penry, for sedition. From the secrecy of Mr. Crane's funeral*—and the private manner in which Barrowe and Greenwood were finally put to death-it is evident that the prelates began to fear the people, although they were not prepared to forego their sanguinary intentions. As an incentive to perseverance, the archbishop promised Bancroft his influence on the next vacancy of an episcopal see. Yet, with all that might be flattering in Original letter of Barrowe's. + Appendix P. the prospect of such an elevation, it was needful to proceed with the utmost care. There were symptoms of popular excitement, particularly in Southwark, that rendered caution quite essential. The Mayor of London,* in writing some months before to the Lord Treasurer, apprized him, that the conduct of the officers, employed for the execution of warrants, had raised almost a spirit of insurrection. Accustomed to carry out acts of lawless tyranny, these coarse and reckless men had entered private dwellings, and, without the semblance of legal sanction, excited the worst fears of the peaceable inhabitants. A few words from the civic functionary will show the state of things more vividly than any general description. His lordship says:-" Being informed of a great disorder and tumult like to grow yesternight, about eight of the clock, within the borough of Southwark, I went thither with all speed I could, taking with me one of the sheriffs, where I found great multitudes of people assembled together, and the principal actors to be certain servants of the felt-makers, gathered together out of Barnsey-street, and the Blackfriars, with a great number of loose maisterlesse men apt for such purposes. Whereupon, having made proclamation and dismissed the multitude, I apprehended the chief doers and authors of the disorder; and I have committed them to prison to be further punished as they shall be found to deserve; and having this morning sent for the deputy and constable of the borough, * Sir William Webbe, uncle of Laud. with divers others of best credit, who were then present to examine the cause and manner of the disorder, I found that it began upon the serving of a warrant from my Lord Chamberlain by one of the Knight Marshal's men, upon a felt-maker's servant, who was committed to the Marshalsea, with certain others accused to his lordship by the said Knight Marshal's men without cause of offence, as themselves do affirm-for rescuing of whom the said companies assembled themselves by occasion and pretence of their meeting at a play ...... I am informed by the inhabitants of Southwark, men of best reputation among them, that the Knight Marshal's men, in the serving of the warrants, do not use themselves with that good discretion and moderate usage as were meet to be done in like cases; but, after a most rough and violent manner, provoking men by such hard dealings to contend with them, who would otherwise obey in all dutiful sort as I understand they did in this case, when they entered the house where the warrant was to be served, with a dagger drawn, affrighting the good wife who sat by the fire with a young infant in her arms; and afterward, having taken the prisoners and committed them to the Marshalsea (where they lay five days without making their answers), these mutinous persons assembling themselves in this disordered manner. The affray became serious. "The Knight Marshal's men rushed out of prison, with their daggers drawn and bastinadoes in their hands beating the people (whereby some, passed that way by chance, came to gaze, as the manner is), and afterwards drew their swords, whereby the tumult was increased and themselves endangered; but that help came to prevent further mischief." Several persons were "slain in the street.' Now, though the populace were not likely to espouse the cause of the religious persons who met in secret, nor the brethren to accept such aid for their cause there was, in the public mind, a strong feeling of indignation at the outrages committed under forms of law. A plot was formed by parties unconnected with the Separatists for the rescue of Udall, and there was the possibility of an outbreak in the case of Penry. The perplexity of the prelates was increased by a lucid defence of Penry drawn up in legal terms. The purport of the paper, stripped of technicalities, may interest the reader. It is entitled, "Mr. Penry's declaration, 16th May, 1593, that he is not in danger of the law for the books published in his name, viz., upon the statute 23 Elizabeth, made against seditious words, because, "1. The books written by him in defence of those points of religion accounted heresy in former statutes, the statute passed in 1 Ed. VI, cap. 12, and unrepealed, secures exemption from penalties otherwise incurred. "2. There is no more sedition in these publications than in the writings of the reformers and martyrs which, though condemned by former statutes, are now printed by royal authority. "3. If this Act had been touching such points, they would have been mentioned expressly. "4. Preaching, concerning these points, is not forbidden; it cannot therefore be illegal to publish, "5. The Roman Catholics are allowed freely to write about them. "6. Mr. Penry never writ anything of any malicious intent to defame any person, much less her excellent Majesty. "7. He never wrote anything, slanderous or seditious, but the pure doctrine of the Word of God. "8. He never wrote anything to move or encourage any insurrection or rebellion amongst her Majesty's subjects, but the clean contrary. "9. He was never of a conventicle where any assembly, either under or above the number of twelve, were assembled with force of arms, or otherwise, to alter anything established by law. "10. He never wrote anything that any person should be raised up of his own authority to alter anything established by law; and never was any such attempt taken in hand by any. Upon the writing of any of his books, he hath evermore, and still doth, gainsay all such godless and wicked practices. "11. He should have been accused of the crime within one month, either on his own voluntary confession, or the evidence brought against him in this case should have been given up at the next gaol delivery. "12. He should have been indicted within one year, otherwise the statute itself (though he had been within the compass of the same) doth clear him in express words." |