Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/754

 744 ^- G. Usher W'lien Fuller was arrested in 1607 by the High Commission for impugning its authority by his speeches in defence of Ladd and Mansell, he was already a marked man. A barrister of standing and a member of Gray's Inn, he sat in James's first parliament and had made his presence felt by his activity in committees and on the floor of the House. He had declared himself in favor of delay- ing the subsidies of which the King stood in such dire need." He had presented bills complaining of pluralities and non-residence among the clergy of the Established Church, and urging that all ministers be limited to one cure and be required to reside upon it.' When the Puritan ministers were deprived in 1605 for their refusal to conform to the canons of the church he spoke in the House in their favor and attempted to defend them in the courts.^ Bate's case and the imposition on currants, a matter which James had much at heart, did not fail to stimulate Fuller to new exertions.'' But his greatest activity and most offensive conduct appeared in regard to the union with Scotland. King James, like most other Scotchmen, could ill brook derogatory flings at his country and the notorious poverty and quarrelsomeness of its people. He was furthermore eager to see that nation united to England and fondly hoped to bear in history the proud cognomen of peacemaker, as the king who had buried the old feuds by a bloodless conquest. But the English people as a whole did not look with favor on James's plans, and none was more outspoken in expressing his reasons than was Fuller. In committee and on the floor of the House he vigor- ously fought the new union. He likened England to a rich pasture surrounded by a fence and pictured the Scots as lean and hungry kine roaming eager-eyed along the boundary, seeking an opening. He dilated upon the dearth of good things which Englishmen would experience when that hungry herd from the North entered the rich fields by a broad and open gate.^ There was not room in England for a single Scotchman, he declared. The fact that Fuller had ex- pressed the sentiment of the majority of Englishmen did not render him less objectionable to James and his councillors. Fuller's activity in Parliament by no means exhausted his energy. Inclined to Puritan doctrines himself, he placed his legal learning at the disposal of such of his co-religionists as were unfortunate enough to come into contact with the courts. Deprived ministers and laymen captured at conventicles were in the habit of seeking ^Commons Jouniais, I. 276. 'Ibid., 286. ^ Ibid., I. 285. "md., I. 334-
 * lbid., 294.