With characteristic pedantry he spoke part of the time in Latin, and his clever refutation of the hapless Puritans sounded like the wisdom of God to the anxious bishops. In spite of the downright scolding and vulgar abuse with which the king flavored his orthodoxy, the aged Whitgift declared that undoubtedly his Majesty spoke by the special assistance of God's Spirit; but one of the worldly bystanders ventured, in defiance of the episcopal dictum, to think that whatever spirit inspired the king was "rather foul-mouthed." Bancroft, Bishop of London, theatrically fell on his knees and solemnly protested that his heart melted within him with joy that Almighty God of his singular mercy had given them such a king "as since Christ's time the like hath not been seen." The king in his turn was naturally impressed with the sagacity of a bishop who could so devoutly admire his Majesty's ability, and, when soon afterward a fresh access of paralysis carried off Whitgift, it was not surprising that Bancroft should be translated from London to Canterbury over the heads of worthier competitors. From the moment of Bancroft's accession to the primacy the lot of the Puritans and Separatists became harder, for he plumed himself doubtless on being the originator of the high-church doctrine, and he was a man whose harsh energy seems not to have been tempered by an intimate piety like that of Whitgift. [Sidenote: Results.] [Sidenote: Svmme and Svbstance, 35.] [Sidenote: Compare Bacon's Certain Considerations touching the better Pacification of the Church of England.] When James rose from his chair at the close of the debate on the second day he said, "I shall make them conform themselves, or I will harry them out of this land, or else do worse"; and he wrote to a friend boasting that he had "peppered the Puritans soundly." But the king had missed, without knowing it, the greatest opportunity of his reign--an opportunity for conciliating or weakening the Puritan opposition, and consolidating the church and his kingdom. James could think of nothing but his own display of cleverness and browbeating arrogance in a dispute with great divines like Reynolds and Chaderton. The conference had been for him a recreation not much more serious than stag-hunting. That it was pregnant with vast and far-reaching results for good and evil in England and the New World he, perhaps, did not dream. By his narrow and selfish course at this critical moment he may be said to have sealed the fate of his son, if not the doom of his dynasty; and his clever folly gave fresh life to the bitter struggle between Anglican and Puritan which resulted in the peopling of New England a quarter of a century afterward. II. [Sidenote: The storm of persecution.] [Sidenote: Bacon's Observation on a Libel.]