quires a particular detail.

* Strype's Life of Parker, p. 342. Strype's Life of Grindal,
p. 315.

** Heylin, p. 165, 166.

*** D'Ewes, p. 245. Camden, p. 446.

**** D'Ewes, p. 245.

v D'Ewes, p. 246.

The most memorable event in this period was a session of parliament,
held on the eighth of February, 1576; where debates were started which
may appear somewhat curious and singular. Peter Wentworth, a Puritan,
who had signalized himself in former parliaments by his free and
undaunted spirit, opened this session with a premeditated harangue,
which drew on him the indignation of the house, and gave great offence
to the queen and the ministers. As it seems to contain a rude sketch
of those principles of liberty which happily gained afterwards the
ascendant in England, it may not be improper to give, in a few words,
the substance of it. He premised, that the very name of liberty is
sweet; but the thing itself is precious beyond the most inestimable
treasures and that it behoved them to be careful, lest, contenting
themselves with the sweetness of the name, they forego the substance,
and abandon what of all earthly possessions was of the highest value
to the kingdom. He then proceeded to observe, that freedom of speech in
that house,--a privilege so useful both to sovereign and subject,--had
been formerly infringed in many essential articles, and was at present
exposed to the most imminent danger: that it was usual, when any subject
of importance was handled, especially if it regarded religion, to
surmise, that these topics were disagreeable to the queen, and that the
further proceeding in them would draw down her indignation upon their
temerity: that Solomon had justly affirmed the king's displeasure to be
a messenger of death; and it was no wonder if men, even though urged by
motives of conscience and duty, should be inclined to stop short when
they found themselves exposed to so severe a penalty: that by the
employing of this argument, the house was incapacitated from serving
their country, and even from serving the queen herself, whose ears,
besieged by pernicious flatterers, were thereby rendered inaccessible
to the most salutary truths: that it was a mockery to call an assembly
a parliament, yet deny it that privilege which was so essential to its
being, and without which it must degenerate into an abject school
of servility and dissimulation: that as the parliament was the great