_Whitgift._--Whitgift, Bishop of Worcester, a person of a very opposite disposition, was promoted, in 1583, to the primacy, on Grindal's decease. He had distinguished himself some years before by an answer to Cartwright's _Admonition_, written with much ability, but not falling short of the work it undertook to confute in rudeness and asperity.[314] It is seldom good policy to confer such eminent stations in the church on the gladiators of theological controversy; who from vanity and resentment, as well as the course of their studies, will always be prone to exaggerate the importance of the disputes wherein they have been engaged, and to turn whatever authority the laws or the influence of their place may give them against their adversaries. This was fully illustrated by the conduct of Archbishop Whitgift, whose elevation the wisest of Elizabeth's counsellors had ample reason to regret. In a few months after his promotion, he gave an earnest of the rigour he had determined to adopt, by promulgating articles for the observance of discipline. One of these prohibited all preaching, reading, or catechising in private houses, whereto any not of the same family should resort, "seeing the same was never permitted as lawful under any christian magistrate." But that which excited the loudest complaints was the subscription to three points, the queen's supremacy, the lawfulness of the common prayer and ordination service, and the truth of the whole thirty-nine articles, exacted from every minister of the church.[315] These indeed were so far from novelties, that it might seem rather supererogatory to demand them (if in fact the law required subscription to all the articles); yet it is highly probable that many had hitherto eluded the legal subscriptions, and that others had conceived their scruples after having conformed to the prescribed order. The archbishop's peremptory requisition passed, perhaps justly, for an illegal stretch of power.[316] It encountered the resistance of men pertinaciously attached to their own tenets, and ready to suffer the privations of poverty rather than yield a simulated obedience. To suffer however in silence has at no time been a virtue with our protestant dissenters. The kingdom resounded with the clamour of those who were suspended or deprived of their benefices, and of their numerous abettors.[317] They appealed from the archbishop to the privy council. The gentry of Kent and other countries strongly interposed in their behalf. They had powerful friends at court, especially Knollys, who wrote a warm letter to the archbishop.[318] But, secure of the queen's support, who was now chiefly under the influence of Sir Christopher Hatton, a decided enemy to the puritans, Whitgift relented not a jot of his resolution, and went far greater lengths than Parker had ever ventured, or perhaps had desired, to proceed.