rch of
England?

In journals, pamphlets and broadsides, the insolence of the three
Levites, as they were called, was sharply reprehended. Warrants were
soon out. Cook and Snatt were taken and imprisoned; but Collier was able
to conceal himself, and, by the help of one of the presses which were at
the service of his party, sent forth from his hiding place a defence of
his conduct. He declared that he abhorred assassination as much as any
of those who railed against him; and his general character warrants us
in believing that this declaration was perfectly sincere. But the
rash act into which he had been hurried by party spirit furnished his
adversaries with very plausible reasons for questioning his sincerity.
A crowd of answers to his defence appeared. Preeminent among them in
importance was a solemn manifesto signed by the two Archbishops and by
all the Bishops who were then in London, twelve in number. Even Crewe
of Durham and Sprat of Rochester set their names to this document. They
condemned the proceedings of the three nonjuring divines, as in form
irregular and in substance impious. To remit the sins of impenitent
sinners was a profane abuse of the power which Christ had delegated
to his ministers. It was not denied that Parkyns had planned an
assassination. It was not pretended that he had professed any repentance
for planning an assassination. The plain inference was that the divines
who absolved him did not think it sinful to assassinate King William.
Collier rejoined; but, though a pugnacious controversialist, he on this
occasion shrank from close conflict, and made his escape as well as he
could under a cloud of quotations from Tertullian, Cyprian and Jerome,
Albaspinaeus and Hammond, the Council of Carthage and the Council of
Toledo. The public feeling was strongly against the three absolvers. The
government however wisely determined not to confer on them the honour of
martyrdom. A bill was found against them by the grand jury of Middlesex;
but they were not brought to trial. Cook and Snatt were set at liberty
after a short detention; and Collier would have been treated with equal
lenity if he would have consented to put in bail. But he was determined
to do no act which could be construed into a recognition of the usurping
government. He was therefore outlawed; and when he died, more than
thirty years later, his outlawry had not been reversed. [683]

Parkyns was the last Englishman who was tried for high tr