of the English Puritans were identical with that of the Contra-
Remonstrants, whom King James had helped to their great triumph. This
was not very difficult to prove. It so happened that there were some
English Puritans living at that moment in Leyden. They formed an
independent society by themselves, which they called a Congregational
Church, and in which were some three hundred communicants. The length of
their residence there was almost exactly coeval with the Twelve Years'
Truce. They knew before leaving England that many relics of the Roman
ceremonial, with which they were dissatisfied, and for the discontinuance
of which they had in vain petitioned the crown--the ring, the sign of the
cross, white surplices, and the like--besides the whole hierarchical
system, had been disused in the Reformed Churches of France, Switzerland,
and the United Provinces, where the forms of worship in their view had
been brought more nearly to the early apostolic model. They admitted for
truth the doctrinal articles of the Dutch Reformed Churches. They had
not come to the Netherlands without cause. At an early period of King
James's reign this congregation of seceders from the establishment had
been wont to hold meetings at Scrooby in Nottinghamshire, once a manor of
the Archbishop of York, but then the residence of one William Brewster.
This was a gentleman of some fortune, educated at Cambridge, a good
scholar, who in Queen Elizabeth's time had been in the service of William
Davison when Secretary of State. He seemed to have been a confidential
private secretary of that excellent and unlucky statesman, who found him
so discreet and faithful as to deserve employment before all others in
matters of trust and secrecy. He was esteemed by Davison "rather as a
son than a servant," and he repaid his confidence by doing him many
faithful offices in the time of his troubles. He had however long since
retired from connection with public affairs, living a retired life,
devoted to study, meditation, and practical exertion to promote the cause
of religion, and in acts of benevolence sometimes beyond his means.