ABSTRACT
In the history of the Church of England, the I590S were a time of consolidation and mounting triumph.1 The internal enemypuritanism-was subdued; the external enemy-catholicismwasted its strength in private dissensions. The Marprelate attacks of 1589 succeeded only in rousing official anger to a pitch of grim determination and in alienating moderate opinion. Whitgift's \vork in the high commission has already been noted. The death of Field and Leicester in 1588 robbed the movement of its organiser and its leading patron. Cartwright survived, to know prison in 159°-2, to publish a last blast in his Apology of 1596, and to disappear into ineffectualness and semi-exile in Guernsey where he died in 1604. Even in parliament the puritan cause found fewer defenders and little support. In 1593 James Morrice, attorney of the court of wards and therefore a crown official, revived memories of Strickland and Cope by introducing two bills attacking ecclesiastical jurisdiction and especially the 'tyrannical' practices of the high commission. Although Sir Robert Cecil's reminder that Elizabeth would resent such an invasion of the prerogative met with little response, Speaker Coke was compelled to divulge the matter to the queen and bring back notice of her anger: he was charged, on his allegiance, to permit the reading of no bill concerning ecclesiastical causes. It seems that a command which in earlier days would have stung the puritan 'choir' into action moved no one in the house; Morrice underwent a spell in prison, and the last attempt by the Elizabethan commons to take the initiative about the Church fell by the wayside.
