CAWDREY'S CASE. [XIV. grievous length along. The High Commission had deprived Cawdrey for nonconformity; the question arose, had the Commission under the terms of the Act of the queen's first year exceeded its authority? The resolution finally adopted by all the judges, and recorded and approved by Coke, affirmed that the ecclesiastical prerogative of the crown was such that the powers of a commission issued by it were not limited by that statute, but covered the whole range of ecclesiastical jurisdiction; and therefore the sentence was good. The judgment in Cawdrey"s case, full of bad law and worse history, is often referred to even now by lawyers with a respect which it does not merit ; here it is useful as showing to what lengths the common lawyers under Elizabeth would go in support of the authority of the crown over things ecclesiastical. It stimulated the Puritans in and out of the Church to bitterer action, and disabled the hands of the bishops who, like Andrewes, would rather have taken the responsibility of their own acts. Twenty years later Coke himself declared against the constitutional character of the Court of High Commission, and, by refusing to act upon it, paved the way for its downfall. But Coke was then in opposition to the king's advisers, and made it his account to be an independent judge. But I am anticipating. The change of Elizabeth for James I was a critical event in English Church history. James's dealings with the Church are not among the strongest, but are perhaps among the least reprehensible parts of his administration. He willingly confirmed the canons of 1604, which make a substantive addition to the canonical lore of the clergy. He failed to secure co-operation between the House of Commons and the Convocation, or between the bishops and the Puritan divines. But this is no wonder. A House of Commons which could listen to Sir Herbert Crofts declaring that the Church had declined ever since doctors began to wear boots; or could