to his Majesty, and would have had a very happy influence, had not the enemies of Mr. Hall misrepresented the book, and so far influenced the King, that a royal edict for a general inhibition, buried it in silence.  Hall after this contended with the Roman Catholics, who upon the prospect of the Spanish match, on the success of which they built their hopes, began to betray a great degree of insolence, and proudly boast the pedigree of their church, from the apostles themselves.  They insisted, that as their church was the first, so it was the best, and that no ordination was valid which was not derived from it.  Hall in answer to their assertions, made a concession, which some of his Protestant brethren thought he had no right to do; he acknowledged the priority of the Roman Church, but denied its infallibility, and consequently that it was possible another church might be more pure, and approach more to the apostolic practice than the Romish.  This controversy he managed so successfully, that he was promoted to the see of Exeter; and as King James I. seldom knew any bounds to his generosity, when he happened to take a person into his favour, he soon after that removed him from Exeter, and gave him the higher bishoprick of Norwich; which he enjoyed not without some allay to his happiness, for the civil wars soon breaking out, he underwent the same severities which were exercised against other prelates, of which he has given an account in a piece prefixed to his works, called, Hall’s hard Measure; and from this we shall extract the most material circumstances.

The insolence of some churchmen, and the superiority they assumed in the civil government, during the distractions of Charles I. provoked the House of Commons to take some measures to prevent their growing power, which that pious monarch was too much disposed to favour.  In consequence of this, the leading members of the opposition petitioned the King to remove the bishops from their seats in Parliament, and degrade them to the station at Commons, which was warmly opposed by the high church lords, and the bishops themselves, who protested against whatever steps were taken during their restraint from Parliament, as illegal, upon this principle, that as they were part of the legislature, no law could pass during their absence, at least if that absence was produced by violence, which Clarendon has fully represented.

The prejudice against the episcopal government gaining ground, petitions to remove the bishops were poured in from all parts of the kingdom, and as the earl of Strafford was then so obnoxious to the popular resentment, his cause and that of the bishops was reckoned by the vulgar, synonimous, and both felt the resentment of an enraged populace.  To such a fury were the common people wrought up, that they came in bodies, to the two Houses of Parliament, to crave justice, both against the earl of Strafford, and the archbishop of Canterbury, and, in short, the whole bench of spiritual