Bancroft, promoted to the Archbishoprick of Canterbury, was, as the historian[324] calls him, “A sturdy piece,” a cruel and inflexible persecutor, treating the non-conformists with the greatest rigour and severity; and who, as Heylin tells us, [325]“was resolved to break them, if they would not bow.” He put the canons and constitutions agreed on A. C. 1603, furiously into execution, and such as stood out against them, he either deprived or silenced. And indeed, as the aforementioned author says, [326]“Who could stand against a man of such a spirit, armed with authority, having the law on his side, and the king to his friend? During his being archbishop he deprived, silenced, suspended, and admonished, above three hundred ministers. The violencies he and his brethren used in the high-commission courts, rendered it a public grievance.” [327]“Every man must conform to the episcopal way, and quit his hold in opinion or safety. That court was the touchstone, to try whether men were metal for their stamp; and if they were not soft enough to take such impressions as were put upon them, they were made malleable there, or else they could not pass current. This was the beginning of that mischief, which, when it came to a full ripeness, made such a bloody tincture in both kingdoms, as never will be got out of the bishop’s lawn sleeves.” ----- Footnote 324: Wilson. Footnote 325: Life of Laud, p. 58. Footnote 326: Wilson. Footnote 327: Wilson. ----- But nothing displeased the sober part of the nation more, than the publication of the Book of Sports, which the bishops procured from the king, and which came out with a command, enjoining all ministers to read it to their parishioners, and to approve of it; and those who did not, were brought into the high commission, imprisoned, and suspended; this book being only a trap to catch some conscientious men, that they could not otherwise, with all their cunning, ensnare. [328]“These, and such like machinations of the bishops,” says my author, “to maintain their temporal greatness, ease, and plenty, made the stones in the walls of their palaces, and the beam in the timber, afterwards cry out, moulder away, and come to nothing; and caused their light to go out offensive to the nostrils of the rubbish of the people.” ----- Footnote 328: Ibid. -----