as I have ever heard), nor may not, claim to themselves any other authority than is given them by the statute of the 25th of King Henry VIII, recited in the first year of Her Majesty's reign, neither is it reasonable that they should make other claims, for if it had pleased Her {162} Majesty with the wisdom of the realm to have used no bishops at all, we could not have complained justly of any defect in our Church." The great crime of which John Penry and others were guilty in the eyes of Burleigh and the Queen was not that he was inculcating something contrary to Catholic tradition, but that he was challenging the authority of the State to create its own tradition! Penry, and indeed all the Separatists, stood for a policy diametrically opposed to this. They desired that the Church should be free, with full power to determine its own constitution and its own creed. Theirs was a protest against Tudor absolutism and uniformity, and in favour of a local government in ecclesiastical affairs, which at a later date developed into Congregationalism. Upon Elizabeth, Whitgift, and Cecil, Penry made no impression. Failing to persuade, he proceeded to defy. He drifted farther and farther from the Established Church, until finally he was put upon his trial for treason, condemned, and executed. John Penry was a reformer from without; in Vicar Pritchard the Church produced a reformer from within. This interesting and amiable man, commonly known as the "Old {163} Vicar," was born in 1579, educated like most other Welsh scholars of the seventeenth century at Jesus College, Oxford, and ordained by the Bishop of Colchester in 1602. In the same year he was given the livings of Llandingal and Llandovery; and to these he in 1613 added that of Llanedi. To the higher ecclesiastical dignities he never attained; but in 1626 he was made Chancellor of the Diocese of St. David's. His life was singularly uneventful; and in 1644 he died, leaving in his will land for the purpose of founding a Free Grammar School at Llandovery. No one felt more keenly, or with a greater sense of shame, the degraded condition of the people of Wales at the time. Although a staunch Royalist and Churchman, he was filled with the stern Puritan love of righteousness, and an ardent desire to convince his countrymen of the evil of their ways. Like Edmund Prys he bethought him of the Welshman's intense love of poetry and music. Why, instead of singing profane ditties, should the people not sing songs of an edifying character? He decided to preach without intermission; but to make verse the vehicle of his message. It would be useless to contend that the Vicar was, in any sense, a great poet; {164} but his versification is at least competent; and the simple stanzas which he composed have an easy swing and flow which makes them admirably adapted for committing to memory by simple and unlettered folk. His collection of religious poems is called _Canwyll y Cymry_ (the Welsh