y one could be so assuming, as to attempt a subject so expressly
contrary to her prohibition: that she was highly offended with this
presumption; and took the present opportunity to reiterate the commands
given by the keeper, and to require that no bill, regarding either state
affairs or reformation in causes ecclesiastical, be exhibited in
the house: and that in particular she charged the speaker upon his
allegiance, if any such bills were offered, absolutely to refuse them a
reading, and not so much as permit them to be debated by the members.[*]
This command from the queen was submitted to without further question.
Morrice was seized in the house itself by a serjeant-at-arms, discharged
from his office of chancellor of the duchy, incapacitated from any
practice in his profession as a common lawyer, and kept some years
prisoner in Tilbury Castle.[**]

The queen having thus expressly pointed out both what the house should
and should not do, the commons were as obsequious to the one as to the
other of her injunctions. They passed a law against recusants; such
a law as was suited to the severe character of Elizabeth, and to the
persecuting spirit of the age. It was entitled, "An act to retain
her majesty's subjects in their due obedience;" and was meant, as the
preamble declares, to obviate such inconveniencies and perils as might
grow from the wicked practices of seditious sectaries and disloyal
persons: for these two species of criminals were always, at that time,
confounded together, as equally dangerous to the peace of society.
It was enacted, that any person, above sixteen years of age, who
obstinately refused during the space of a month to attend public
worship, should be committed to prison; that if, after being condemned
for this offence, he persist three months in his refusal, he must abjure
the realm; and that, if he either refuse this condition, or return after
banishment, he should suffer capitally as a felon, without benefit of
clergy.[***] This law bore equally hard upon the Puritans and upon the
Catholics; and had it not been imposed by the queen's authority, was
certainly, in that respect, much contrary to the private sentiments
and inclinations of the majority in the house of commons. Very little
opposition, however, appears there to have been openly made to it.[****]

* D'Ewes, p. 474, 478. Townsend, p. 68.

** Heylin's History of the Presbyterians, p. 320.

*** 35 Eliz. c. 1.