by law to repress spiritual abuses; and the first spiritual abuse
which he would repress should be the liberty which the Anglican
clergy assumed of defending their own religion and of attacking
the doctrines of Rome.93

But he was met by a great difficulty. The ecclesiastical
supremacy which had devolved on him, was by no means the same
great and terrible prerogative which Elizabeth, James the First,
and Charles the First had possessed. The enactment which annexed
to the crown an almost boundless visitatorial authority over the
Church, though it had never been formally repealed, had really
lost a great part of its force. The substantive law remained; but
it remained unaccompanied by any formidable sanction or by any
efficient system of procedure, and was therefore little more than
a dead letter.

The statute, which restored to Elizabeth the spiritual dominion
assumed by her father and resigned by her sister, contained a
clause authorising the sovereign to constitute a tribunal which
might investigate, reform, and punish all ecclesiastical
delinquencies. Under the authority given by this clause, the
Court of High Commission was created. That court was, during many
years, the terror of Nonconformists, and, under the harsh
administration of Laud, became an object of fear and hatred even
to those who most loved the Established Church. When the Long
Parliament met, the High Commission was generally regarded as the
most grievous of the many grievances under which the nation
laboured. An act was therefore somewhat hastily passed, which not
only took away from the Crown the power of appointing visitors to
superintend the Church, but abolished all ecclesiastical courts