[54] Hallam’s Constitutional History of England, chap. ii. 57, 58, 6th ed. [55] Knox’s History of the Reformation in Scotland, being volume first of his Works, collected and edited by David Laing. Edinburgh, 1846. [56] Shirley’s Introduction to Fasc. Zizan., pp. 45, 46. [57] Speed’s Chronicle, p. 672—ed. 1632. [58] Preface to A Catalogue of the Original Works of John Wycliffe: 1865. [59] M’Crie’s Life of John Knox, Period I. [60] Milton, Paradise Lost, Book VI. [61] _A True Account of the Rye House Plot_, by Thomas Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, 1685. [62] _State papers, Charles II._, June 1683—“A Particular Account of the Situation of the Rye House.” [63] _Rye House Papers._ Examination of Robert West of the Middle Temple. A special collection among the State Papers. It may be remembered that when this collection was examined an original treatise of Milton was discovered among the documents—a find which led to Macaulay’s essay on Milton. [64] _Rye House Papers._ Examination of Josiah Keeling and Robert West. [65] Ibid. [66] _Rye House Papers._ Examination of Josiah Keeling and Robert West. [67] Ibid. [68] _Rye House Papers._ Examination of Josiah Keeling and Robert West. [69] Ibid. Examination of Thomas Shepherd. [70] Rye House Papers. Examination of Robert West and Josiah Keeling. [71] _Rye House Papers._ Examination of Robert West and Zachary Bourn. [72] _Rye House Papers._ Examination of Lord Howard, Alexander Gordon, and Robert West. [73] _Rye House Papers._ Examination of Col. Romsey and Robert West. [74] He was in fact a “recluse” in the ancient and proper sense of the term. For in the Bishop’s time it still remained customary, after an imposing ceremony, literally to seal and shut up by the hands of a bishop those—men or women—who elected to be recluses, in a small chamber built for the purpose close to the wall of some church with an opening inwards that the immured tenant might hear the service and receive necessary subsistence. We are told, for example, by St. Foix that Agnes de Rochier, the beautiful daughter of a rich tradesman, commenced such a life at the church of St. Opportune, in Paris, on the 5th of October, 1403, and though then of only eighteen years, lived in this hermetic state till the ripe enough age of eighty.