Struggle for Constitutional Govemmeiit 233 ecclesiastical history written by one Eusebius, and another fellow they call Socrates, 1 wherein I found many arguments and incitements to move men to such doctrine as is com- prised and compiled in the Liturgy. After that I searched into the acts and monuments of this kingdom, written by old Fox, 2 and there I found that the composers of it were bishops and doctors, and great learned schoolmen of unfeigned integrity, of impregnable constancy, who, with invincible faith, suffered most glorious martyrdom by the papal tyranny, for the writing and maintaining that book, with the true Protestant religion contained in it. Brethren, I must confess that I was somewhat puzzled in my mind at these things, and I could not be satisfied till I had consulted with some of our devout brothers. Our brother How, the cobbler, was the first I broke my mind to, and we advised to call or summon a synod to be held in my Lord Brook's stable, the Reverend Spencer, the stable groom, being the metropolitan there. At our meeting there was Greene the felt maker, Barebones the leather seller, Squire the tailor, with Hoare a weaver, and Davison a bone-lace maker of Messenden, and Paul Hickeson of Wickham, tailor, with some four or five baker's dozens of weavers, millers, tinkers, botchers, broom men, porters, of all trades, many of them bringing notes with them fit- ting for our purpose. . . . IV. The Early Acts of the Long Parliament The attempt of Charles I, Laud, and the Episcopal party to force a new religious service on the Scotch provoked a struggle which led to war. A clergyman, in a letter to Strafford, dated October 9, 1637, describes the reception accorded to the innovation by the Scotch. 1 A church historian somewhat later than Eusebius. 2 The author of the well-known Book of Martyrs. See above, p. 199.
