“‘Marry!’ quoth Sir Walter, ’these two be like, for neither could I learn hitherto what God is.’

“Mr. Fitzjames answering that Aristotle should say he was Ens Entium, I answered, that whether Aristotle, dying in a fever, should cry:  Ens Entium, miserere mei; or drowning himself in Euripum, should say:  Quia ego to non capio, to me capies, it was uncertain, but that God was Ens Entium, a thing of things, having being of Himself, and giving being to all creatures, it was most certain, and confirmed by God Himself unto Moses.

“‘Yea, but what is this Ens Entium?’ saith Sir Walter.

“I answered it is God, and being disliked as before, Sir Walter wished that grace might be said, ‘for that,’ quoth he, is better than his disputation.’  Thus supper ended and grace said, I departed to Dorchester with my fellowminister, and this is to my remembrance the substance of that speech with Sir Walter Raleigh I had at Wolverton.”

“Ralph Ironside.”

Turning to the remaining depositions, we find that Francis Scarlett, minister of Sherborne, sworn and examined, relates how that “a little before Christmas, one Robert Hyde, of Sherborne, shoemaker, seeing this deponent passing by his door, called him, and desired to have some conversation with him, and after some speeches, he entered into these speeches.  “Mr. Scarlett, you have preached unto us that there is a God, a Heaven, a Hell, and a resurrection after this life, and that we shall give an account of our works, and that the soul is immortal; but now, saith he, here is a company about this town that say that Hell is no other but poverty and penury in this world, and Heaven is no other but to be rich and enjoy pleasures; and that we die like beasts, and when we are gone there is no more remembrance of us, and such like.

But this examinate did neither then demand who they were, neither did he deliver any particulars unto him, and further saith that it is generally reported in Sherborne, that the said Allen and his men are atheists.  And also he saith there is one Lodge, a shoemaker in Sherborne, accounted an atheist.”

John Deuch, churchwarden of Weeke Regis:  “To the sixth interrogatory this deponent saith that he hath heard one Allen, Lieutenant of Portland Castle, when he was like to die, being persuaded to make himself ready to God for his soul, to answer that he would carry his soul to the top of an hill, and run God, run devil, fetch it that will have it, or to that effect.  But, who told this deponent of it, he remembereth not.  To the rest of the interrogatory he can say nothing.”

What punishment followed on these examinations does not appear.  A fine was probably imposed on all those convicted of speaking and propagating atheism; but in spite of the investigations and the discredit thrown on the sect, it did not by any means die out.

Essex was accounted at that time the only nobleman who cared for religion.  His manner was to censure all men as “cold professors, neuters, or atheists.”  In the declaration of W. Masham before the Lord Treasurer Buckhurst, he said that Essex told the people when he incited them to rise, that he acted “for the good of the Queen, city, and crown which certain atheists, meaning Raleigh, had betrayed to the Infante of Spain.”  At his execution he thanked God that he was never atheist nor papist."*