as its cause, and to avoid this was to ensure exemption from the other. I will make no concessions,' he often declared; ' my father made concessions and he was beheaded.' His folly was also shown in the confidence with which he relied on the members of the Church of England conforming their practice to their theory. It had, he knew, been proclaimed from ten thousand pulpits, it had been solemnly declared by the University of Oxford, that even tyranny as frightful as that of the most depraved of the Cæsars, did not justify subjects in resisting the royal authority; and hence he was weak enough to conclude that the whole body of Tory gentlemen and clergymen would let him plunder, oppress, and insult them without lifting an arm against him.' He ought to have known, from his own experience, that men frequently do what they deem wrong, and his intercourse with mankind might surely have convinced him that nothing is more fallacious than to reason from the abstract opinions of men to what their conduct will be in given circumstances. James, however, was as inaccessible to reason as to mercy. He was as incapable of appreciating the one, as his temper was foreign from the other. His infatuation was encouraged by Sunderland, whose evil genius stooped to any baseness by which his cupidity and lust of power could be gratified. On the other hand, it is melancholy to relate, that the Protestant ministers of the king employed the vilest agencies to defend their Church. Catharine Sedley possessed unbounded influence over the royal mind, and this illicit connexion was used to defend the Protestant faith. The Catholic party, though tolerant of other vices, discountenanced this, and urged the king to banish Catharine from his palace. They dreaded her influence, for she was politically Protestant, though living in notorious vice. Rochester and others conceived a hope that their master's infatuation for this woman might cure him of the more pernicious infatuation which impelled him to attack their religion. She had all the talents which qualified her to play on his feelings, to make game of his scruples, to set before him in a strong light the difficulties and dangers into which he was running headlong. Rochester, the champion of the Church, exerted himself to strengthen her influence. Ormond, who is popularly regarded as the personification of all that is pure and highminded in the English cavalier, encouraged the design. Even Lady Rochester was not ashamed to co-operate, and that in the very worst way. Her office was to direct the jealousy of the injured wife towards a young lady who was perfectly innocent. The whole court took notice of the coldness and rudeness with which the queen treated the poor girl on whom suspicion had been thrown; but the cause of her majesty's ill humour was a

mystery. For a time the intrigue went on prosperously and secretly. Catharine often told the king plainly what the Protestant lords of the council only dared to hint in the most delicate phrases. His crown, she said, was at stake: the old dotard Arundel and the blustering Tyrconnel would lead him to his ruin.' Such an intrigue, conducted by such parties, for such an end, throws a more gloomy light on the state of public morals than the worst scheme of the Papal faction; and we rejoice to learn that it proved abortive. Its triumph would have been far more pernicious than any injury the bigotry of James could inflict. Even its temporary success was fraught with evils which were felt for years. It loaded the Protestant faith with infamy, gave to the Catholics an immense advantage over their opponents, and divested the contest of its higher and more sacred attributes. Happily, the obstinacy of James broke up the intrigue. In opposition to the earnest entreaty of his mistress, she was gazetted Countess of Dorchester, which so effectually aroused the queen that she insisted on her banishment from court. The king now resolved on obtaining from Westminster Hall a decision in favour of his dispensing power. He had long treated the law as a nullity, but his temper was fretted by the knowledge of its existence, and he resolved on its abolition. He was not content with the progress, unscrupulous as it had been, hitherto made, and therefore applied to the courts of Common Law to legalize the power he exercised. Four of the judges, violent Tories, some of whom had accompanied Jeffreys on the Western Circuit, declined to lend themselves to his policy. Among these was Jones, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, who had hitherto shrunk from no service which his master enjoined. He was plainly told that he must give up his opinion or his place. "For my place," he answered, “I care little. I am old and worn out in the service of the crown; but I am mortified to find that your majesty thinks me capable of giving a judgment which none but an ignorant or a dishonest man could give." "I am determined," said the king, "to have twelve judges who will be all of my mind as to this matter.' "Your majesty," answered Jones, "may find twelve judges of your mind, but hardly twelve lawyers." His dismission immediately followed, together with that of the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and of two puisne judges.

'James did not even make any secret of his intention to exert vigorously and systematically for the destruction of the Established Church all the powers which he possessed as her head. He plainly said that, by a wise dispensation of Providence, the Act of Supremacy would be the means of healing the fatal breach which it had caused. Henry and Elizabeth had usurped a dominion which rightfully belonged to the

holy see.

see.

That dominion had, in the course of succession, descended to an orthodox prince, and would be held by him in trust for the holy He was authorized by law to repress spiritual abuses; and the first spiritual abuse which he would repress should be the liberty which the Anglican clergy assumed of defending their own religion and of attacking the doctrines of Rome.'-Ib. p. 89.

An ecclesiastical commission, in imitation of the Court of High Commission, was now appointed, and directions were issued by the king forbidding the clergy to preach on the points in controversy between them and the Roman Church. These directions were felt to be one-sided, and the spirit of the clerical order rose against them. Within the precincts of the palace the dogmas of the Papacy were zealously propounded, while the church of the great majority of the nation was forbidden to explain and defend her own principles.' The natural result followed. Alarm and indignation pervaded the kingdom. Rude mobs assailed the papal worship, the memory of Smithfield revived, and contending sects learned in the presence of a common foe to forget their mutual wrongs, and to unite for the defence of a common faith. The discontent,' Barillon wrote to his court in July, 1686, 'is great and general; but the fear of incurring still worse evils restrains all those who have anything to lose. The king openly expresses his joy at finding himself in a situation to strike bold strokes. He likes to be complimented on this subject. He has talked to me about it, and has assured me that he will not flinch.'

The dismission of Rochester and Clarendon speedily followed, and marked a great epoch in the reign of James.' The least credulous were compelled to admit the sinister designs of the court. A general proscription was thought to be at hand, and the more earnest spirits of the age began to prepare for one of those death-struggles, which great interests alone can induce. There was evidently no alternative left. The king had resolved on the establishment of Catholicism, and loss of place or apostasy from Protestantism was submitted to the choice of his servants.

James was probably astonished at the opposition he had encountered. It is marvellous that he should have been so. His own zeal for the Papacy while living in open vice, ought to have prepared him for the tenacity with which courtiers and libertines, corrupt judges and unscrupulous soldiers, a dull squirearchy and an intolerant priesthood, clung to the new form of Protestantism. He had, however, failed, notwithstanding all his violence and tyranny, and he now turned to the Protestant Dissenters, in the vain hope of rendering them subservient to his policy. They had been the opponents of his grandfather, of his father, and of his brother. They had broken the

power of the first Charles, and had been the strength of the party whom the stormy tribuneship of Shaftesbury alone prevented from curbing the tyranny of the second. They had clamoured for the Exclusion Bill, and in their hatred of Popery had welcomed even Monmouth as a deliverer. James had been their bitter persecutor in Scotland, and was always foremost in counselling the most atrocious measures against them. To these sectaries he now turned with a meanness which awakens disgust, and a hypocrisy to which few parallels are found save in the annals of the Inquisition. On the 4th April, 1687, a Declaration of Indulgence was published, in which James affected the advocacy of religious liberty, declared that conscience ought not to be forced, and condemned persecution as vicious in principle, and disastrous in its effects. He suspended all penal laws against all classes of Nonconformists. He authorized both Roman Catholics and Protestant Dissenters to perform their worship publicly. He forbade his subjects, on pain of his highest displeasure, to molest any religious assembly. He also abrogated all those acts which imposed any religious test as a qualification for any civil or military office.' It would not have been surprising if Dissenters had fallen into the snare set for them. The king's Indulgence offered them deliverance from terrible evils. For nearly thirty years they had been given over a prey to the persecutor. Their ministers had been silenced, the sanctity of their homes invaded, their meetings for worship broken up. Hundreds of the vilest of mankind were let loose upon them, and earned their daily bread by acting as spies for those in power. The prisons of the kingdom were literally crowded with their brethren. Thousands had been reduced to penury, vast numbers sought a refuge in foreign lands, and many hundreds passed from their prison to the grave to bear witness at the bar of the Eternal against the persecuting spirit of the hierarchy. What wonder, therefore, would it have been if the Protestant sectary had welcomed deliverance, come whence it might, and had deemed it even sweeter if it involved the humiliation and defeat of the Church from which he had suffered so severely? The declaration, despotic as it might seem to his prosperous neighbours, brought deliverance to him. He was called upon to make his choice, not between freedom and slavery, but between two yokes; and he might not unnaturally think the yoke of the king lighter than that of the Church.' The Church entertained the most serious apprehensions. Her rulers were dismayed by the league projected against her, and re-acted the same part as had deluded the Presbyterians of the Restoration. We are not indisposed to do honour to the moderate men of the Church, but their number was small, and their influence had

been a nullity. The great body of the clergy were as bitterly hostile to the Nonconformists, as the Roman Catholics of Mary's reign had been to the Protestants, and had evinced their hostility as far as the feeling of the age permitted. The fires of Smithfield were not indeed rekindled, but scarcely a prison in the kingdom but had witnessed the death of some noble confessor whom their bigotry had consigned to the tortures of slow decay. The tide of affairs, however, had now turned, and an analogous change was instantly visible in the language of the clergy.

Of the acrimony and scorn with which prelates and priests had, since the Restoration, been in the habit of treating the sectaries, scarcely a trace was discernible. Those who had lately been designated as schismatics and fanatics were now dear fellow Protestants-weak brethren it might be, but still brethren, whose scruples were entitled to tender regard. If they would but be true at this crisis to the cause of the English constitution and of the reformed religion, their generosity should be speedily and largely rewarded. They should have, instead of an indulgence which was of no legal validity, a real indulgence, secured by act of parliament.'-Ib. p. 218.

Want of space does not permit our entering largely on this subject. It is beyond all question that the conduct of Dissenters, as a body, was worthy of the occasion; at once honourable to themselves and serviceable to their country. No thirsting for vengeance, no mean consideration of personal interests, was permitted to influence their course. They saw through the policy of the king, and they heartily despised it. As on other occasions, they were willing to be sacrificed, rather than surrender the liberties of England. There was scarcely a market-town in the kingdom which did not contain some Dissenters, and though circular letters, imploring them to sign addresses of thanks were sent to every corner of the nation, yet, as Mr. Macaulay affirms, all the addresses which could be obtained from all the Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists, scattered over England did not in six months amount to sixty; nor is there any reason to believe that any of these addresses was numerously signed.' Baxter and Howe, John Bunyan and Kiffin, headed the opposition, and their brethren nobly responded to their counsel. Neither entreaty nor threats could move them. They were not to be cajoled or intimidated. Kiffin was introduced to the royal presence, and, amidst a brilliant circle, was assured of the favour of the king. But the old man remembered his two grandsons, those gallant youths who, of all the victims of the Bloody Assizes, had been the most generally lamented.' He had pleaded earnestly for their lives, but without success; and now stood face to face with the tyrant who had ordered them to death. "I have put you down, Mr. Kiffin," said James, "for