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152 too much—on the theological aspects of the Conference which gives Hampton Court a claim to commemoration in the history of the English Church; but two points are enough to emphasise here. It was this Conference which made it clear that, now the Reformation struggle itself was over, the English Church and its prelates and kings had no thought of accepting any changes which should sever them from the old order of the Catholic world. They still followed the Fathers as well as the Bible, and in ceremonies, as in doctrine, would not abandon the old, nor be led into the new straitness of a grim Genevan model. And if this point concerns historians and divines, there is another which is worth noting by the world at large. There is no theologian more vociferous than your layman. Give him free speech and he will never have done. Learning and wit behind him, he will tell his clergy their duty, and teach them their lesson with light heart and long tongue. James delighted in the Hampton Court Conference, for he could say his best and his utmost. And so, when men went away, it was the King's sayings and doings they most thought of. "No bishop, no king,"—and the strange comparison for the Presbyterian system, in which he had been brought up,—and his last words, "If this be all they have to say, I shall make them conform themselves, or I will harry them out of the land, or else do worse."

It was clear, when the Conference was over, that