imposition of the oath _ex
officio_.[321] They even exclaimed that God had bestowed on them a
king, the like of whom had not been seen from the beginning of the
world. It had been the intention and custom of other princes to limit
the jurisdiction of the clergy, and to diminish their possessions. How
much had they suffered from this even under Elizabeth! On the contrary
it was one of the first endeavours of James I to put an end for ever
to these attacks. For as in Scotland the abolition of bishoprics had
been attended with a diminution of the authority of the crown, he had
reason to be deeply convinced of the identity of episcopal and
monarchical interests. In the heat of the conference at Hampton Court
he laid down as his principle, 'No bishop no king.'

But in all this did King James fall in with the spirit of the English
constitution? Did he not rather at this point intrude into it the
sharpness of his Scottish prejudices? The old statesmen of England had
acknowledged the services of the English Puritans in saving the
Protestant confession in the struggle with Catholicism. The Puritans
only wished not to be oppressed. He confounded them altogether with
their Scottish co-religionists with whom he had had to contend for
the sovereignty of the realm.

In less than two months from the Hampton Court Conference the Book of
Common Prayer was re-issued with some few alterations, with regard to
which the King expressly stated that they were the only alterations
which were to be expected; for that the safety of states consisted in
clinging fast to what had been ordained after good consideration. This
was soon followed by a new collection of ecclesiastical laws, in the
shape which they had taken under the deliberations of Convocation. In
them the royal supremacy was insisted on in the strongest terms, and
that over the whole kingdom, Scotland included. The same competence
with regard to the Church was therein assigned to the King which had
belonged to the pious kings of Judah and to the earliest Christian
emperors: their authority was declared to be second only to that of
Heaven. Henceforward no one was to be ordained without promising to
observe the Book of Common Prayer and to acknowledge the
supremacy.[322] And this statute had a retrospective application, even
to those who were already in possession of an ecclesiastical benefice.
The King and Archbishop Bancroft ordered that a short respite should
be given to those who