ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY from the Continent/^ London formed a natural refuge for these sectaries who had fled from persecution in their own countries, and in spite of the queen's orders to leave England they remained and increased. In 1567 there were several small congregations of Anabaptists in the Minories and other parts of London. When discovered holding conventicles they were frequently imprisoned, but were usually released after a short time without further punishment." Occasionally, however, sterner measures were taken. Another sect which gave some trouble to the authorities in London was that known as the Family of Love. In 1575 the Bishop of London was instructed to take order with the members of this body,'^ and a few years later a search was commanded to be made for persons suspected to be teachers or professors of their doctrines.*" Several Yeomen of the Guard were accused of belonging to this sect," but it does not appear to have had very many adherents. In 1584 Robert Browne, the founder of the sect called Brownists or Barrowists, was imprisoned for some months, and was released by the in- fluence of Lord Burghley, who seems to have felt some sympathy with him,*' and who was his kinsman. The rest of Browne's career was uncon- nected with London, but his followers increased rapidly in the City. In 1587 Bishop Aylmer examined twenty-one Brownists, most of whom had been arrested at conventicles held at a private house in the parish of St. Andrew by the Wardrobe. Nearly all were Londoners, one being Mr. Crane, a minister ordained by Grindal, who gave it as his opinion that ' all the [prayer] book was not Gospel,' while another, Margaret Maynard of Bread Street, said that ' there was no Church in England.' *' The Brownists as a body did not differ from the Church of England on any article of faith, but they objected to her form of government, and considered that her discipline was popish and antichristian. They held that each indi- vidual congregation formed a church, and that Church government should be democratic." Two of their leaders, John Greenwood, at one time rector of St. Nicholas Olave, and Henry Barrow, were imprisoned for some years in the Fleet, and ultimately executed in 1593 for their religious opinions." In 1592 the Brownist congregations scattered about London formed themselves into a church.*^ They were regarded with great disfavour by the authorities, and numbers of them were imprisoned." A great number of Protestant foreigners fleeing from religious perse- cution in their own countries came to London during the reign of Elizabeth. The queen favoured them,*** and shortly after her accession ordered the church of the late Austin Friars, which had in 1550 been granted to the Dutch refugees, to be restored to the Bishop of London for the celebration of divine service 'by the strangers in London.'*' Bishop Grindal had much '= S.P. Dom. Eliz. xiii, 35. Cf. Grindal's Rem. (Parker Soc), 243. " Stow, Mem. 143. '» See Jets ofP.C. viii, 369, 389. Ibid, viii, 398.
- " Corp. Rec. Journ. xxi, fol. 76. Cf. S.P. Dom. Eliz. cxxxiii, 55.
- ' Acts ofP.C. X, 332, 344 ; xii, 231-2, 269.
" Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xi, App. vii, 294 ; Diet. Nat. Biog. ; Neal, Puritans (ed. 1822), i, 302. " S.P. Dom. Eliz. cciv, 10. " Neal, op. cit. i, 303. « Egerton Papers (Camd. Soc), 167-79 i ^^"^ ^^S. (Hist. MSS. Com.), iv, 73-4 ; B.M. Harl. MS. 6848. Cf. Diet. Nat. Biog. '^ Neal, op. cit. i, 358-67. " Jets o/P.C. xxiv, 145 ; xxviii, 256. " S.P. Dom. Eliz". xxiv, 24. " Ibid, xi, 24. I 313 40
