A Child's History of England.233

A spirit began to arise in the country, which the besotted [发蠢的] blunderer [犯错误的人] little expected. He first found it out in the University of Cambridge. Having made a Catholic a dean at Oxford without any opposition, he tried to make a monk a master of arts at Cambridge: which attempt the University resisted, and defeated him. He then went back to his favourite Oxford. On the death of the President of Magdalen College, he commanded that there should be elected to succeed him, one Mr. Anthony Farmer, whose only recommendation was, that he was of the King's religion. The University plucked up [鼓起] courage at last, and refused. The King substituted another man, and it still refused, resolving to stand by its own election of a Mr. Hough. The dull tyrant, upon this, punished Mr. Hough, and five-and-twenty more, by causing them to be expelled and declared incapable of holding any church preferment; then he proceeded to what he supposed to be his highest step, but to what was, in fact, his last plunge head-foremost in his tumble off his throne.

He had issued a declaration that there should be no religious tests or penal [relating to legal punishment] laws, in order to let in the Catholics more easily; but the Protestant dissenters, unmindful [不加考虑] of themselves, had gallantly joined the regular church in opposing it tooth and nail [very fiercely/persistently]. The King and Father Petre now resolved to have this [the declaration] read, on a certain Sunday, in all the churches, and to order it to be circulated for that purpose by the bishops. The latter took counsel with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was in disgrace; and they resolved that the declaration should not be read, and that they would petition the King against it. The Archbishop himself wrote out the petition, and six bishops went into the King's bedchamber [bedroom] the same night to present it, to his infinite astonishment. Next day was the Sunday fixed for the reading, and it was only read by two hundred clergymen out of ten thousand. The King resolved against all advice to prosecute the bishops in the Court of King's Bench, and within three weeks they were summoned before the Privy Council, and committed [收监] to the Tower. As the six bishops were taken to that dismal place, by water, the people who were assembled in immense numbers fell upon their knees, and wept for them, and prayed for them. When they got to the Tower, the officers and soldiers on guard besought [beseech:恳求] them for their blessing. While they were confined there, the soldiers every day drank to their release with loud shouts. When they were brought up to the Court of King's Bench for their trial, which the Attorney-General said was for the high offence of censuring [严厉批评] the Government, and giving their opinion about affairs of state, they were attended by [陪伴] similar multitudes [大群人], and surrounded by a throng [拥挤的人群] of noblemen and gentlemen. When the jury went out at seven o'clock at night to consider of their verdict, everybody (except the King) knew that they would rather starve than yield to the King's brewer [酿酒师], who was one of them, and wanted a verdict for his customer [the King]. When they came into court next morning, after resisting the brewer all night, and gave a verdict of not guilty, such a shout rose up in Westminster Hall as it had never heard before; and it was passed on among the people away to Temple Bar, and away again to the Tower. It did not pass only to the east, but passed to the west too, until it reached the camp at Hounslow, where the fifteen thousand soldiers took it up and echoed it. And still, when the dull King, who was then with Lord Feversham, heard the mighty roar, asked in alarm what it was, and was told that it was 'nothing but the acquittal of the bishops,' he said, in his dogged [不屈不挠的] way, 'Call you that nothing? It is so much the worse for them.'

the Protestant dissenters: 新教但不是英国国教
be in disgrace (with sb): be regarded with deep disfavour 很不讨人喜欢; 令人不喜爱

六级/考研单词: catholic, dean, electoral, substitute, resolve, punish, expel, plunge, tumble, throne, issue, secular, illicit, dissent, regulate, nail, fierce, circulate, bishop, latter, counsel, petition, infinite, astonish, clergy, advice, prosecute, summon, commit, assemble, immense, weep, pray, confine, loud, offend, multitude, noble, jury, verdict, starve, yield, guilt, temple, echo, roar, shallow