Ꮲ Ꭺ Ꭱ Ꭲ I. [Attesta tion of the Clerk of House of him in that Parliament, more particularly mentioned and disavowed in his prefixed Protestation, do hereby testify and declare, that to the best of our present knowledge and remembrance, no such book against Bishops as is there mentioned, was presented to the House of Peers in that Parliament and consequently, that no such speech as is there pretended, was or could be made by him or any other against it. In testimony whereof we have signed this our attestation with our own hands. Dated the 19th day of July Anno Domini, 1658. To this proof nothing remaineth that can be added, but only the testimony of the Clerk of the Parliament; who, the Upper after a diligent search made in the book of the Lords' House, hath with his own hand written this short certificate in the margin of one of your books, pag. 9, over against your relation" ; Parliament.] "Upon search made in the book of the Lords' House, I do not find any such book presented, nor any entry of any such speech made by Bishop Morton. HENRY SCOBEL, Clerk of the Parliament." And now methinks I hear the Fathers blaming of their own credulity, and rashness, and overmuch confidence. They ["To the best of our knowledge." Barwick.] a [See Barwick's Life of Morton, c. i. § 102. p. 120; who says, that Mr. Scobel, "after a long and diligent search, wrote" this certificate "over against the place where the objection is made page 9, in the margin of the book which I have in my custody." Lord Audley replied to this particular attestation (Null. of Prel. Clergy &c., c. ix. § 2. p. 91), that "it is not the office of the clarque to record speeches;" which is true; but it is his office to record the presentation of books to the House. Lord Audley, in his second declaration, avoids this difficulty, and contradicts himself (or Talbot), by denying that he had ever mentioned "a book presented."] had forgotten Epictetus his rule, "Remember to distrust"." DISCOURSE I judge them by myself; "Homo sum, humani à me nihil alienum puto"." One circumstance being either latent or mistaken, may change the whole drift and scope of a relation. But though we would be contented to lend a skirt of our coat to cover the fault of them who calumniate our Church, yet this relation can never be excused in any man from a most grievous mistake, where both the person and the whole scope of his discourse is altogether mistaken. This is almost as great a mistake as the Nag's Head Ordination itself; where a confirmation dinner was mistaken for a solemn consecration. But those who cherish such mistakes for advantage, and deck them up with new matter, and publish them to the world for undoubted truths, cannot be excused from formal calumny. V. witness The last thing to be considered in this first part of this [3. Of the discourse, being the vindication of the Reverend Bishop of to the Duresme, is concerning the witness ; whom, as the Fathers story.] b [Epicharmus, ap. Cic., ad Attic., i. 19.] [Terent., Heautontim., I. i. 25.] [This was James Touchet, Baron Audley, and Earl of Castlehaven in Ireland. He repeated his assertion upon the publication of Bramhall's book, both in a note to Bramhall himself, and in a more particular reply to the passage in the text, inserted in N. N.'s rejoinder to Bramhall (viz. The Nullity of the Prelat. Clergy &c. further discovered, &c.) c. ix. § 2. pp. 88-91. The comparative value of his testimony and Bp. Morton's has been discussed by Le Quien (Null. des Ord. Angl., P. i. c. vii. § 7) on the one side, and Courayer (Déf. de la Dissert. sur la Val. des Ord. Angl., liv. ii. c. 5) on the other, upon a very insufficient acquaintance with the facts. The former, for instance, argues against Bp. Morton's protestation, as the compulsory evidence of a dishonest man, contradicted by many witnesses, and not repeated upon Lord Audley's second affirmation; a statement, as Courayer justly replies, at direct variance with the facts of the case in its first and third points; in its accusation of dishonesty, having no better ground than the virulence of opponents in con troversy; while in the last place, Bp. that his supposed testimony is not I. PART do forbear to name, so shall I. Of whom they say four things, that "he is one of the ancientest Peers of England," that "he was present in Parliament when Morton made this speech," that "he will take his oath of the truth of it," and that "he cannot believe that any will be so impudent to deny it." We have no dispute concerning the antiquity of Peerage, let that pass but I am confident, whatsoever his present judgment had been, either of the speaker or of the speech, removing him from it: and, further, the question, so far as regards his original declaration, is set at rest entirely by the expression of Bramhall in the text, misunderstood by Courayer, that he himself "had conference with him" (the witness) "about this relation." Courayer is equally inaccurate in a further attempt to demonstrate the falsity of Lord Audley's testimony: 1. from the date of Bp. Morton's withdrawal under protest from the House of Lords (Dec. 29. 1641; see above p. 8. note i.); 2. from the date of Lord Audley's own residence in Ireland (viz. without interval, from some time before Oct. 23, 1641, when the Irish rebellion broke out, until at least 1646; Memoirs above mentioned): for, unfortunately, the alleged date of the pretended speech is not " the year 1642," as Courayer from Le Quien supposed, but "the beginning of the last Parliament," which began to sit Nov. 3, 1640, and in the first year of which Bp. Morton was certainly in attendance, and in almost constant attendance, upon the sittings of the House, (see above p. 8, and note i, and Journals); while Lord Audley (as appears by the Journals) took his seat in the House of Lords April 16, 1640; was certainly present there Dec. 10 and 19, 1640, and March 17, 1640-1; and was probably in constant attendance until June 1641, as he was engaged in a suit before the House with Lord Cottington, which was not discharged until the 18th of that month (he is marked "extra regnum" only on April 15, 1642). See also Browne, Story of the Ordination of Our first Bps. in Qu. Eliz. reign at the Nag's Head Thoroughly Examined (Lond. 1731), who has corrected some of Courayer's mistakes. However, Courayer proceeds to argue from other grounds in favour of Bp. Morton with considerable justice and force; viz. from the madness of the alleged speech, considered as a defence of Episcopacy, -from its absolute want of consequences, no one (not even Rushworth) having even noticed it at the time (nor is there any mention either of Ld. Brooke's book, or of any speech at all of Bp. Morton's, either in the Journals of the House, or in Hansard's Parliamentary History),-from the existence of a work of Morton's ("Judgment of Protest. Divines &c. in behalf of the Episcopal degree in the Church," publ. by Ussher in 1644, without Morton's name; see Des Maizeaux's Life of Chillingw. pp. 305-307.) supporting Episcopacy upon ordinary groundsand, lastly, from the simplicity, solemnity, and publicity, of his protest, made when almost on his deathbed, and attested so readily by all who could speak to the point (the accuser indeed, but he alone, excepted). To this may be added the inconsistency of Lord Audley's two declarations (see p. 34. note a); and the absolute disproof of the first of them as regards Ld. Brooke's book. It is curious, however, that neither Courayer nor Le Quien even notice a circumstance of great weight in the question, and upon which the original assailant in his rejoinder (Null. of Prel. Clergy &c., c. ix.) lays the heaviest stress-viz. that it is a question of positive as against negative testimony. The latter undoubtedly disproves the possibility of a speech of the character alleged; for a deliberate and lengthened argument could scarcely be either unnoticed or forgotten or misunderstood: but (good faith being assumed on both sides) it would not disprove, against a positive testimony to the contrary, a casual and indifferent mention of the topic. And this seems the utmost that can possibly be true in the present case.] V. your witness would have abstained from uncivil language; Discourse as to style the Reverend Bishop of Duresme a "pretended Bishop," and plain "Morton," without either welt or guard; he would not have forgotten all his degrees, both in the Church and schools. He will not charge all them with downright "impudence," who tell him that he was doubly mistaken; nor call that "notorious to all the world," which he himself acknowledgeth that he never heard of before in his life. He is not guilty of those inferences, and eo nomine's which you have added. I do not believe that he doth, or ever did, know the Bishop of Duresme so well as to swear this is the man; nor doth take himself to be so exact an analyser of a discourse as to be able to take his oath what was the true scope of it, pro or contra; especially when something is started that doth quite divert his attention, as the sound of the market bell did the philosopher's auditors. This is my charity. And my ground for it is this. When I had once conference with him about this relation, he told me the name of the Nag's Head did surprise him, and he betook himself to inquire of another what it meant. And 435 when I urged to him, that it was incredible that any Protestant Bishop should make such a speech, unless he used it only by way of supposition, as argumentum ad hominem, a reason fit for my Lord Brooke,-that such a consecration as that was, agreed well enough with his principles, he told me he knew not that, the Bishop might answer so for himself. To conclude, I have heard the Bishop of Lincoln' did once [Possible origin of mention the fable of the Nag's Head in a speech in Parlia- the story.] ment; but with as much detestation of it as our ancestors used to name the devil. Why might not the mistake, both of the person, and of the drift or scope of his speech, be the occasion of this relation? I had rather out of charity run into two such right-handed errors, than condemn a noble e [Bp. Morton was a member of the committee of Lords on Ld. Audley's suit with Ld. Cottington (Journals, Dec. 10, 1640); and was besides a most active member of the House (until expelled with the other Bps.) during the Parliament in question; so that Ld. Audley of course must have known him by sight.] f [i. e. Bp. Williams. Dr. Thomas Winniffe, who was consecrated Feb. 6, 1641 (Percival, from the Register) to the see of Lincoln upon Williams' translation to the Archbishopric of York, and who died in 1654, did not sit in Parliament at all. See above p. S. note i.] PART I. gentleman, of whose ingenuity I never had any reason to doubt, of a malicious lie. Take it at the very best, the mistake is great enough, to mistake both the person of the speaker and the scope of his speech. I hope they will all do that which in conscience they are obliged to do; that is, acquit the Bishop of Duresme and crave his pardon for their mistake. If they do not, the world will acquit him, and condemn them. But the greatest mistake of all others was, to publish such a notorious untruth to the world so temerariously without better advice. CHAP. III. THREE REASONS AGAINST THE NAG'S HEAD CONSECRATION; I. FROM THE [The story Now having beaten down the pillar about their ears, which related by these Fathers. Having told, how the Protestant doctors who were designed for Bishoprics in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, "had prevailed with Anthony Kitchin, Bishop of Llandaff, to give them a meeting at the Nag's Head in Cheapside, in hope he would ordain them Bishops there;" and how the Bishop of Llandaff " through Bishop Bonner's threatenings refused" (all which shall be examined and laid open to the view of the world in due order, how it is stuffed with untruth and absurdities); they add, that "being thus deceived of their expectation, and having no other means to come to their desires" (that is, to obtain consecration), "they resolved to use Mr. Scory's help, an apostate religious priest, who having borne the name of Bishop in King Edward the Sixth's time, was thought to have sufficient power to perform that office, especially in such a strait necessity as they pretended. He, having cast off together with his religious habit all scruple of conscience, willingly went about the matter; which he performed in this sort, having the Bible in hand, and they all kneeling before |