And in these times, which tended thus to confusion, there were
also many of these scruple-mongers, that pretended a tenderness of
conscience, refusing to take an oath before a lawful Magistrate: and
yet these very men in their secret Conventicles did covenant and
swear to each other, to be assiduous and faithful in using their best
endeavours to set up the Presbyterian doctrine and discipline; and
both in such a manner as they themselves had not yet agreed on; but
up that government must. To which end there were many that wandered
up and down and were active in sowing discontents and seditions,
by venomous and secret murmurings, and a dispersion of scurrilous
pamphlets and libels against the Church and State; but especially
against the Bishops; by which means, together with venomous and
indiscreet sermons, the common people became so fanatic, as to believe
the Bishops to be Antichrist, and the only obstructers of God's
discipline! and at last some of them were given over to so bloody a
zeal, and such other desperate delusions, as to find out a text in
the Revelation of St. John, that Antichrist was to be overcome by
the sword. So that those very men, that began with tender and meek
petitions, proceeded to admonitions: then to satirical remonstrances:
and at last--having, like Absalom, numbered who was not, and who was,
for their cause--they got a supposed certainty of so great a party,
that they durst threaten first the Bishops, and then the Queen and
Parliament, to all which they were secretly encouraged by the Earl
of Leicester, then in great favour with her Majesty, and the reputed
cherisher and patron-general of these pretenders to tenderness of
conscience; his design being, by their means, to bring such an odium
upon the Bishops, as to procure an alienation of their lands, and a
large proportion of them for himself: which avaricious desire had at
last so blinded his reason, that his ambitious and greedy hopes seemed