crimes. It could fine and imprison at will, and employ any measures
for securing information or calling witnesses. The result was that all
nonconformists and all Puritans drew closer together under
trial. Another result was that the Bible was studied more earnestly in
private, and that there was a public eager to read the religious books
and pamphlets published abroad and cautiously circulated in
England. Though the Presbyterians were confined to the nonconformist
clergy and to a comparatively small number among them, they were
rising in importance, and were accorded sympathetic recognition as a
section of the Puritan party. This party, as a whole, continued to
increase its membership. The Separatists also increased, for, as of
old, the blood of the martyrs became the seed of the church.

The hope that times would mend when James ascended the throne was soon
abandoned. As he had been trained in Scotch Presbyterianism, the
Presbyterians believed that he would grant them some favor, while the
Puritans looked for some conciliatory measures. Eight hundred Puritan
ministers, a tenth of all the clergy, signed the "Millenary Petition,"
asking that the practices which they most abhorred, such as the sign
of the cross in baptism, the use of the surplice, the giving of the
ring at marriage, and the kneeling during the communion service,
should be done away with. The petition was not Presbyterian, but was
strictly Puritan in tone. It asked for no change in the government or
organization of the church. It did ask for a reform in the
ecclesiastical courts, and it demanded provision for the training of
godly ministers. James replied to the petition by promising a
conference of prelates and of Puritan ministers to consider their
demands; but at the conference it was found that he had summpned it
only to air the theological knowledge upon which he so greatly prided
himself. His answer to the petition was that he would have "one