Excerpt from Lives of the Queens of England From the Norman Conquest, Vol. 8 of 16: Compiled From the Official Records and Other Authentic Documents, Private as Well as Public Soon after Elizabeth's return from her Kentish progress, the following strange circumstance occurred - A crazy fanatic, named Peter Burchet, having persuaded himself, by the misapplication of certain Scripture texts, that it was lawful to kill all who opposed the gospel, - that is to say, those who took a different view of church government from the furious sect to which he belonged, - wounded the famous naval commander Hawkins with his dagger, mis taking him for sir Christopher Hatton, whom he intended to despatch as an enemy of the Puritans. The queen was so much incensed at this outrage that she ordered justice to be done on Burchet in the summary way of martial law,1 and directed her secretary to bring the commission to her after dinner for her signature. Sussex, her lord chamber lain, wrote in great haste to Burleigh to apprise him of her majesty's intention, and that he and all her lords in wait ing were in consternation at the royal mandate. What will become of this act after dinner, says he, your lord ship shall hear to-night. Her prudent counsellors suc ceeded, finally, in convincing her majesty that the ceremony of a trial was necessary before an Englishman could be executed for any offence whatsoever. It appears almost incredible that Elizabeth, after reigning sixteen years. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.