the Cambridge case, and summarily deprived Pechell, the vice-chancellor, of his office, and suspended him from the mastership of Magdalen College. James then commanded the Fellows of Magdalen to elect as their master one Anthony Farmer, a concealed papist. The Fellows petitioned his majesty, but finding him not to be moved, they exercised their own undoubted right, and elected Doctor Howe. The ecclesiastical commission declared this election to be void, and then a new mandate was issued to the college to elect Parker, bishop of Oxford, who had several qualifications which Farmer had not, but who was also suspected of being a papist in disguise. The Fellows with unexpected spirit stuck to the master of their own choosing, and Howe exercised his authority in spite of the ecclesiastical commission and the king. In the course of a summer progress James arrived at Oxford, summoned the members of Magdalen into his presence, chid them for their disobedience, and told them to go away and choose the bishop of Oxford, or else they should certainly feel the weight of his sovereign displeasure. Here was a call upon passive obedience from the very lips of the Lord's anointed; but still the Fellows insisted on their right, and answered him respectfully but firmly. The tyrant, astonished and enraged, issued a commission to Cartwright, bishop of Chester, Chief Justice Wright, and Baron Jenner, to examine the state of the college, with full power to alter the statutes and frame new ones. The commissioners arrived at Oxford on the 20th of October, when Cartwright thundered at the devoted college; but Howe maintained his own rights, and the rights of the body which had elected hin, with decorum and firmness; and when, on the second day, the commissioners deprived him of the presidency and struck his name off the books, he entered the hall and boldly protested against all they had done. The chief justice bound him in a thousand pounds to appear in the King's Bench, and Parker was put into possession by force. Then a majority of the Fellows were prevailed upon to submit "as far as was lawful and agreeable to the statutes of the college." But the weakly arrogant king would

not be satisfied with this; he insisted that the Fellows should acknowledge their disobedience and repentance in a written submission. Upon this the Fellows withdrew their former submission, and declared in writing that they could not acknowledge they had done anything amiss. On the 16th of November Bishop Cartwright pronounced the judgment of the commission in the shape of a general deprivation and expulsion. This was followed up in December by the sentence of the ecclesiastical commission, which incapacitated all and every the Fellows of Magdalen from holding any benefice or preferment in the church. James himself declared that he would look upon any favour shown to the Fellows as a combination against himself; but notwithstanding his threats considerable collections were made for them, and his own daughter, the Princess of Orange, sent over 2007. for their relief; and in the end, though they obtained the honours of martyrdom, they experienced little of its sufferings.

But long before this result the king had issued "A Declaration for liberty of conscience;" by which all the penal laws against Protestant nonconformists as well as Catholics were to be suspended.* But this power of suspending the laws "by prerogative, royal, and absolute power," was not to be tolerated by any people pretending to freedom and a constitution; and it was understood by nearly every dissenting Protestant in the land, that the nonconformists were only coupled with the Catholics for policy and expediency, and that the toleration of the Catholics was only intended as a preparatory step to the triumphant establishment of the church of Rome, which had never yet in any European kingdom tolerated the doctrines and practices of any other church whatsoever. With remarkably few exceptions the large but disunited body of Dissenters rejected the boon as a

*The declaration came out in the Gazette on the 4th of April, 1687. To prepare the way for it, a declaration of indulgence, expressed in much loftier and more absolute language, had been issued by proclamation at Edinburgh.

snare, and prepared to stand by the lately persecuting but now threatened episcopal church; and not only the result, in which, as in all human affairs, there was much that was accidental or unforeseen, but also the coolest reasoning on all the circumstances of the case, will justify their preference, and prove that they acted wisely and politically. When the declaration was published James told the pope's nuncio that he had struck a blow which would make a great noise; that in a general liberty of conscience the Anglican religion would be the first to decline; and the nuncio informed his court that the established church was mortified at the proceeding; that the Anglicans were "a ridiculous sect, who affected a sort of moderation in heresy, by a compost and jumble of all other persuasions; and who, notwithstanding the attachment which they boast of having maintained to the monarchy and the royal family, have proved on this occasion the most insolent and contumacious of men."

On the 3rd of July James obliged the timid and more than half unwilling ambassador of the pope to go through the honours and ceremonies of a public introduction at Windsor. Crewe, bishop of Durham, and Cartwright, bishop of Chester, were ready instruments in this parade; but the Duke of Somerset, the second peer of the kingdom, who was selected to introduce D'Adda, besought his majesty to excuse him from the performance of an act which by the laws of the land was still considered an overt act of treason. "Do you not know," said James, "that I am above the law ?" The duke replied, "Your majesty is so, but I am not." On the day before this public reception the parliament, which had been kept from meeting by repeated prorogations, was absolutely dissolved. Nothing was to be hoped from the enslaved law, from the corrupt and time-serving judges; the bishops and the church, who would have assisted the king in establishing a despotism if he had not trenched upon their own rights, were left to head the war against him. Nor can it be fairly said that they took up arms upon slight provocation. Four popish bishops were publicly consecrated in the chapel royal; were sent to their dio

ceses with the title of vicars apostolical; and their pastoral letters were licensed, printed, and dispersed through the kingdom. The regular clergy of Rome, in the habits of their order, constantly crowded the court and its purlieus; and these priests too soon forgot their recent danger and distress, and became in many instances over-confident and insolent in their sudden prosperity. Even in those days there were Catholic Spaniards that were no bigots. Ronquillo, the Spanish ambassador, ventured to represent to James the danger of these proceedings; and when asked whether it was not the custom of his country for the king to consult his priests and confessors, he replied "Yes; and for that reason our affairs succeed so ill.”

Mary of Este had had repeated miscarriages, but had never borne a living child to continue and complete the great work of Catholic conversion. But at last a pilgrimage made by the king during the summer to St. Winifred's Well, in Wales, and the votive gifts of the queen and her mother to the shrine of Loretto, were supposed to have had the desired effect, and on the 23rd of December, the queen's pregnancy was announced in the Gazette, together with an order for a day of thanksgiving for the same. But not merely the partisans of the prince and princess of Orange, but nearly every Protestant in England, declared from the beginning, that a trick was planned to defraud the Princess Mary of her rights; and the proclamation in the Gazette was treated with ribaldry and indecent wit, which gave a fresh bitterness to the temper of the king.

A.D. 1688.-On the 27th of April James not only published a new declaration of indulgence, but also commanded all the Protestant clergy to read it in their churches. This was the spark that set fire to the train. "By this," says the Princess Anne, writing to her sister Mary in Holland, one may easily guess what one is to hope for henceforward, since the priests have so much power with the king our father as to make him do things so directly against the laws of the land, and, indeed, contrary to his own promises." The majority of

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the clergy were resolute not to read the declaration. Archbishop Sancroft was sick, but six bishops-Lloyd of St. Asaph, Ken of Bath and Wells, Turner of Ely, Lake of Chichester, White of Peterborough, and Trelawney on the evening of the 18th of May, knelt before the king at Whitehall and presented a petition. "This

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is my Lord of Canterbury's hand-writing," said James angrily. And when he had read and folded up the paper he added, with disdain and anger, "This is a great surprise to me. I did not expect this from you. This is a standard of rebellion!" Lloyd, of St. Asaph, who was the boldest of the bishops, and who had handed the paper to the king, replied, "We have adventured our lives for your majesty, and would lose the last drop of our blood rather than lift up a finger against you.' I tell you," rejoined James, "that this is a standard of rebellion !" Then Trelawney, of Bristol, fell upon his knees and said, "Rebellion, sir! I beseech your majesty not to say anything so hard against us. For God's sake do not believe we are or ever can be guilty of rebellion!" [Now Lloyd and Trelawney, who "uttered these loud and vehement protestations,' were the only prelates present who harboured projects of decisive resistance.*] The Bishops of Chester and Ely professed their unshaken loyalty, and were afterwards true to their profession. James kept muttering, "Is this what I have deserved from the Church of England? I will remember you who have signed this paper! I will keep this paper! I did not expect this. I will be obeyed!" "God's will be done!" ejactulated Ken, bishop of Bath and Wells, in a low voice. "What's that?" exclaimed the enraged king. Ken and his brethren only repeated, (t God's will be done." James then dismissed them with violent and incoherent language. On the morrow, as he was on his way to mass, he met the Bishop of St. David's. "My lord," cried he, "your brethren have presented the most seditious paper that ever was penned. It is a trumpet of sedition!" But before this time the bishops' petition was

* Sir James Mackintosh.