were inclined to acquiesce; but that those who
made a decided resistance should without further ceremony be deprived
of their benefices.

On this the whole body of Puritans necessarily became agitated. A
number of clergymen sought out the King at Royston in December 1604.
While they announced to him their decision rather to resign their
benefices than to submit to these ordinances, they called his
attention to the danger to which the souls of the faithful would be
subjected by this severity. In February a petition in favour of those
ministers who refused to subscribe was presented to the King by some
of the gentry of Northamptonshire. He expressed himself about this
with great vehemence at a sitting of the Privy Council. He said that
he had from his cradle suffered at the hands of these Puritans a
persecution which would follow him to his grave. But in England the
tribunals were quite ready to come to his assistance. In the Star
Chamber it was declared a proceeding of seditious tendency to assail
the King with joint petitions in a matter of religion.

Towards the end of February 1605 the bishops cited the clergy of
Puritan views to appear at St. Paul's in London in order to take the
oath. There were some members of this party who held it lawful to
conform to the Anglican Church because it at least acknowledged the
true doctrine. These had time for reflection given them; the rest who
persevered in an opposition of principle were deprived of their
offices without delay.

These proceedings for the first time recalled most vividly to men's
minds the memory of the late Queen. People said that, though she
disliked the Puritans, she had never consented to persecute them on
religious grounds, for that she well knew how much she owed to them in
every other respect. They saw a proof of the King's incapacity in his
departure from her example and pattern. They thought him to blame for
remitting in favour of Catholic recusants the execution of the penal
laws enrolled among the statutes of the realm. And the foreign policy
of the King awakened no less disapproval. It was felt as an injury,
that he had put an end by the peace to the hostilities against Spain,
which had now become even popular. Even the severe edicts issued
against the piracy, which had found support in different quarters,
produced in many places an unfavourable impression. The King was
obliged to compensate the admiral for the losses which he affirmed
that he had