"2 to procure for them an interview that they might present it. Lord Sunderland would not read the petition, but he went at once to the king, and an interview was immediately accorded to the bishops. The king expected an address from them, but one of a very different character.1 The Bishop of St. Asaph handed him the petition. He observed pleasantly, "This is my Lord of Canterbury's own hand," and opened and read the document. Then his face darkened. He folded up the paper and said, "This is a great surprise to me. Here are strange words. I did not expect this from the Church of England. This is a standard of rebellion. This is a sounding of Sheba's trumpet, and all the seditious preachings of the Puritans in the year '40 were not of so ill consequence as this." The bishops eagerly disclaimed all disloyalty. Ken was by far the most outspoken. He said, “Sir, I hope you will give that liberty to us which you allow to all mankind." "The reading of this Declaration is against our conscience," said the Bishop of Peterborough. "I will have my Declaration published,” said the king. "We will honour you, but we must fear God," said Ken and Trelawney. "I will be obeyed," said the king. "God's will be done," said the bishops. Then, telling them that he should keep the paper, and that if he saw fit to alter his mind he would send for them, he dismissed the bishops. Within a few hours the bishops' petition was in print, and on the following morning the memorable events of the previous evening were known throughout the city. § 19. The next day was Sunday, the first on which the Declar ation was to be read. Would the clergy follow the bold lead of the bishops, or would they timidly succumb? Crowds thronged the churches to witness the result. In the city of London the Declaration was read in only four churches. Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, was Dean of Westminster. As soon as he began to read, the congregation sprang to their feet and hastened from the church. The Dean's voice was drowned, and his hand shook so violently that he could scarce read the words. By the time he had finished only the choir and the scholars remained in the church.3 London had begun well; if the country should follow its lead the cause would be won. Lord Halifax, who wielded the most dexterous pen in England, came to the aid of the Church. His Reasons against reading the Declaration were spread broadcast over the land. 1 Bishop Cartwright had told the king that they meant to address him to the effect that such sort of orders were properly addressed to their chancellors. 2 A minute account of this memorable scene is preserved in Sancroft's own hand.-Tanner MSS., vol. xxviii., printed in appendix to Clarendon Correspondence. 3 Clarendon's Diary, ii. 172. These convincing Reasons determined the waverers where there were any. The result was that not more than two hundred clergy in the whole country read the Declaration. In the diocese of Norwich, out of twelve hundred churches, it was only read in four. In the dioceses of Oxford, Lichfield, and Hereford, only four or five clergy in each read it.1 The clergy emphatically refused to accept and approve the illegal act of the king. Many of these men held the doctrine of passive obedience. Many of them showed their attachment to the principle of hereditary right by afterwards becoming nonjurors. But no fear of the consequences could lead them to sin against their consciences by becoming active participators in an illegal act, and lending themselves to the conspiracy against their Church and nation. § 20. It was now to be seen what steps the king would take with regard to this open disobedience. James was known to be a man of obstinate temper. Nor was he ordinarily given to hesitation. Yet for a week no sound proceeded from Whitehall. Perhaps he waited for another Sunday to see if there would be any yielding or hesitation on the part of the clergy. But on the second Sunday the refusal was still more general than on the first. Some who had read the Declaration once declined to read it a second time. Then at last a decision was taken. On the evening of May 27 the archbishop received a summons from Lord Sunderland, President of the Council, to appear on June 8 before his Majesty in Council. Similar summonses were sent to the other bishops who had signed the petition. The bishops appeared at the Council board about five o'clock on Friday, June 8. The Lord Chancellor took up a paper lying on the table, and asked the archbishop if he acknowledged it to be his petition. The archbishop declined to answer. Then, being commanded by the king to answer, he read the paper over, and owned it as the petition. Other questions which were put to them, both he and the bishops, acting under legal advice, declined to answer. They were then told that they would be tried in Westminster Hall, and bid to enter into recognisances. This they refused, having been specially warned against it by their counsel. The king and his advisers were at their wits' end. § 21. Every effort was made to induce the bishops to yield, but in vain, and so the Council was constrained to commit them to the Tower. The whole city was in the highest state of excitement. As the bishops passed in the barge conveying them to the Tower, the banks of the river were crowded with people, who kneeled 1 Details may be found in Life of Ken, by a Layman; Memoirs of Dean Comber; Life of Dean Prideaux; Burnet's Own Time; etc. etc. down and asked their blessing, and offered prayers for them.1 The next day their prison was attended like a royal court. Lord Clarendon, the king's brother-in-law, was there. Lord Halifax came to proffer his services. John Evelyn, to congratulate them on their constancy. A large body of Nonconformist ministers came to offer their sympathy.2 § 22. On June 15, when they were brought up to Westminster to plead, there were the same enthusiastic crowds soliciting their blessing. They were indicted for having written, "under pretence of a petition, a certain false, pernicious, and scandalous libel," and having pleaded not guilty were allowed to go abroad on their own recognisances. In the interval between the commitment and the trial, the greatest efforts were made to induce the bishops, or any one of them, to yield and sue for pardon, but they all stood firm. § 23. On June 29 they came into the court attended by half the peers of England, and the trial proceeded. The prosecution proved their signatures by the evidence of the clerk of the Council, who had heard them acknowledge them, and attempted to prove the publication by the evidence of Lord Sunderland, to whom the bishops had communicated the substance of their petition. The counsel for the bishops boldly denounced the illegality of the king's dispensing power, and at the same time showed the absurdity of designating a petition privately presented to the king, according to the manifest right of the subject, as a malicious libel. All now depended on the judges. Two of them (Wright and Allybone) pronounced it a libel. Two (Powell and Holloway) ruled that it was no libel, and that the king possessed no such dispensing power as he claimed. § 24. The jury remained locked up all night. At ten o'clock in the morning of June 30 they came into court and announced that they had agreed on their verdict. The judges assembled, the bishops were brought into court, and a stillness like death settled on the vast assemblage. The foreman pronounced the words Not Guilty. "As the words left his lips, Lord Halifax sprang up and waved his hat. At that signal benches and galleries raised a shout. In a moment ten thousand persons, who crowded the great hall, replied with a still louder shout which made the old oaken roof crack, and in another moment the innumerable crowd without set up a third huzza which was heard at Temple Bar. The boats which covered the Thames gave an answering cheer. A peal of gunpowder was heard on the water, and another, and so in a few 1 Burnet's Own Times, p. 469; Evelyn's Diary. 2 Reresby's Memoirs, p. 347. moments the glad tidings went past the Savoy and the Friars to London Bridge, and the forest of masts below. As the news spread, streets and squares, market-places and coffee-houses, broke forth in acclamations. Meanwhile, from the outskirts of the multitude, horsemen were spurring off to bear along all the great roads intelligence of the victory of our Church and nation."1 The popularity of the Church was at its height. The portraits of the bishops were eagerly sought for, and carefully cherished, and abundant congratulations were poured upon them from all quarters. 1 Macaulay, Hist. of England. 2 2 Life of Ken, ii. 443. CHAPTER XXXVI. TOLERATION AND COMPREHENSION. 1688-1689. § 1. The king blind to his danger. § 2. Being warned, he sends for the bishops. § 3. Their advice. § 4. They refuse to sign an Abhorrence of William of Orange. § 5. William not cordially received by the English clergy. § 6. Flight of James; the Guildhall meeting. § 7. Sancroft refuses to act in public affairs. § 8. Clergy generally in favour of a Regency. § 9. The new oaths of allegiance. § 10. Toleration necessarily following on the change of Government. § 11. Danger of a Comprehension Scheme. § 12. The Bill for Union. § 13. The Commons reject it. § 14. They pass the Toleration Bill. § 15. The King deter. mines to consult the Convocation. § 16. Commission to prepare a scheme of alterations. § 17. Tillotson's programme of the work to be done by it. § 18. They agree to a scheme of alterations. § 19. Great excitement among the clergy. § 20. Meeting of the Canterbury Convocation. § 21. Lower House insists on alterations in the Address. § 22. The Comprehension Scheme not submitted to Convocation. § 1. THE vehement rejoicings of the country at the acquittal of the bishops (June 30) do not seem to have opened the eyes of King James to the suicidal nature of his policy. Orders were sent to the Court of High Commission to procure the names of those clergymen who had refused to read the king's Declaration. July 12, the Commission issued an order to all chancellors, archdeacons, and officials, to make these returns by August 16. On that day, no returns being forthcoming, they extended the period to November 15.1 On August 13 the king issued an order to the Warden and Fellows of All Souls' College, Oxford, to admit John Cartwright, of Trinity College, Cambridge, to the vicarage of Barking, in their gift, "any statute, custom, or constitution, to the contrary notwithstanding." 2 But though the king was thus blind, others who had acted with him were more keen-sighted. Bishop Sprat now writes to resign his office of ecclesiastical commissioner, declaring that he cannot with a safe conscience sit as judge upon so many pious and excellent men, with whom, if it be God's will, it rather became him to suffer. "I protest," he says, " sincerely what I did was to no other end but that I might preserve the king's favour towards us, and thereby the enjoyment of our religion according to his gracious promise, nor did I conceive his 1 D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft, i. 318. |