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 brought an indictment against the commission before the assizes, and, both times failing, brought the articles before Archbishop Harsnett at York, again without success. The principal things objected to were the position of the altar, the altar lights, the vestments used at Holy Communion, and the position of the celebrant. It is a curious illustration of that force of character which was a striking feature in Cosin that, though he was probably the youngest of the chapter (he was only thirty-two), he was evidently and rightly regarded as the prime mover in the obnoxious alterations. This prominence of Cosin is further shown by the fact that in 1633, when Charles I visited Durham Cathedral, Cosin had the whole regulation of the king's reception, and the arrangement of the services which the king attended.

In 1634–5 Cosin was elected to the mastership of Peterhouse, Cambridge, vacant by the promotion of Dr. Matthew Wren to the see of Hereford. Here again he at once made his mark. The chapel services were brought up by the new master to the Laudian level. ‘A glorious new altar,’ writes Prynne, ‘was set up, and mounted on steps, to which the master, fellowes, schollers bowed, and were enjoyned to bow by Doctor Cosins, the master who set it up. There were basons, candlestickes, tapers standing on it, and a great crucifix hanging over it,’ and much more in the same vein (Canterbury's Doom, pp. 73, 74). In 1639 Cosin became vice-chancellor of the university, and in 1640 was appointed by Charles I, whose chaplain he was, dean of Peterborough.

But his old enemy, Smart, had now an opportunity of paying off old scores. He presented a petition to the House of Commons complaining of Cosin's ‘superstitious and popish innovations in the church of Durham,’ and of his own ‘severe prosecution in the high commission court.’ Cosin was sentenced by the whole house to be ‘sequestered from all his ecclesiastical benefices,’ and thus became ‘the first victim of puritanical vengeance who suffered by a vote of the commons’ (, Hist. of Durham). In 1642 he was an active instrument in sending the college plate to supply the royal mint at York, and was, in consequence, ejected from the mastership (13 March 1643–4) by warrant from the Earl of Manchester, being again the first to be thus ejected.

He retired to Paris, and officiated, by order of the king, as chaplain to those of Queen Henrietta Maria's household who belonged to the church of England. He first officiated in a private house; but that soon proved too small to contain the congregation, and Sir Richard Brown, the English ambassador in France, and the father-in-law of John Evelyn, fitted up the chapel at the residency, and there the English services were conducted for nearly nineteen years, with all that imposing ritual which Cosin loved. The Romanists made persistent efforts both to win over Cosin with offers of great preferment, and to seduce the English in the household of Queen Henrietta, who was herself a Romanist. Perhaps they thought the way would be prepared for them by Cosin himself, who had been regarded by the puritans in England as half a Romanist. But if so, they quite mistook their man. Cosin was much further removed from Romanism than he was even from puritanism; and the attempts of the Romanists only incited him to forge some formidable weapons against themselves. He held controversies with Roman priests; he devoted his enforced leisure to literary work against Romanism, and used his great personal influence for the same purpose. So that ‘whilst he remained in France he was the Atlas of the protestant religion, supporting the same with his piety and learning, confirming the wavering therein, yea, daily adding proselytes (not of the meanest rank) thereunto’ (, Worthies). One convert the Romanists did succeed in making, viz. Cosin's only son, to the intense grief of his father, who disinherited him in consequence. It has been thought that Cosin's annoyance caused him to fraternise with the Huguenots more closely than might have been expected from one of his views. He attended the services of the reformed church at Charenton, and was on terms of great intimacy with several ministers of that communion, who allowed him to officiate in their chapels, using the office of the church of England. But it is quite unlike Cosin to be influenced by personal pique in such a matter; and there is not the slightest trace of any such feeling in his own writings. On the contrary, he gives a perfectly clear and logical account of the course which he adopted. He drew a marked distinction between those who had not received ordination from bishops because they could not help themselves, and those who deliberately rejected it when it was within their reach. This was also the view taken by Bishop Overall, and Cosin was always deeply influenced by the judgment of his ‘lord and master.’

Cosin ‘had lodgings assigned him in the Louvre, together with a small pension from France, on account of his connection with the Queen of England’. He also received some pecuniary assistance from friends in England, notably from Dr. (after-