thus prevented us from accurately predicting the weather, compare
_Forbes on Meteorology_, in _Second Report of British
Association_, pp. 249-251; _Cuvier_, _Progrès des Sciences_, vol.
i. pp. 69, 248; _Kaemtz's Meteorology_, pp. 2-4; _Prout's
Bridgewater Treatise_, pp. 290-295; _Somerville's Physical Geog._
vol. ii. pp. 18, 19. But all the best authorities are agreed that
this ignorance cannot last long; and that the constant advance
which we are now making in physical science will eventually
enable us to explain even these phenomena. Thus, for instance,
Sir John Leslie says, 'It cannot be disputed, however, that all
the changes which happen in the mass of our atmosphere, involved,
capricious, and irregular as they may appear, are yet the
necessary results of principles as fixed, and perhaps as simple,
as those which direct the revolutions of the solar system. Could
we unravel the intricate maze, we might trace the action of each
distinct cause, and hence deduce the ultimate effects arising
from their combined operation. With the possession of such data,
we might safely predict the state of the weather at any future
period, as we now calculate an eclipse of the sun or moon, or
foretell a conjunction of the planets.' _Leslie's Natural
Philosophy_, p. 405: see also p. 185, and the remarks of Mr. Snow
Harris (_Brit. Assoc. for 1844_, p. 241), and of Mr. Hamilton
(_Journal of Geog. Soc._ vol. xix. p. xci.) Thus, too, Dr.
Whewell (_Bridgewater Treatise_, p. 3) says, that 'the changes of
winds and skies are produced by causes, of whose rules "no
philosophical mind" will doubt the fixity.'
[627] This connexion between ignorance and devotion is so clearly
marked, that many nations have a separate god for the weather, to
whom they say their prayers. In countries where men stop short of
this, they ascribe the changes to witchcraft, or to some other
supernatural power. See _Mariner's Tonga Islands_, vol. ii. pp.
7, 108; _Tuckey's Expedit. to the Zaire_, pp. 214, 215; _Ellis's
Hist. of Madagascar_, vol. ii. p. 354; _Asiatic Researches_, vol.
vi. pp. 193, 194, 297, vol. xvi. pp. 223, 342; _Southey's Hist.
of Brazil_, vol. iii. p. 187; _Davis's Chinese_, vol. ii. p. 154;
_Beausobre_, _Hist. de Manichée_, vol. ii. p. 394; _Cudworth's
Intellect. Syst._ vol. ii. p. 539. The Hindus refer rain to
supernatural causes in the _Rig Veda_, which is the oldest of
their religious books; and they have held similar notions ever
since. _Rig Veda Sanhita_, vol. i. pp. xxx. 10, 19, 26, 145, 175,
205, 224, 225, 265, 266, vol. ii. pp. 28, 41, 62, 110, 153, 158,
164, 166, 192, 199, 231, 258, 268, 293, 329; _Journal of Asiatic
Soc._ vol. iii. p. 91; _Coleman's Mythol. of the Hindus_, p. 111;
_Ward's View of the Hindoos_, vol. i. p. 38. See further two
curious passages in the _Dabistan_, vol. i. p. 115, vol. ii. p.
337; and on the 'Rain-makers,' compare _Catlin's North-American
Indians_, vol. i. pp. 134-140, with _Buchanan's North-American
Indians_, pp. 258, 260: also a precisely similar class in Africa
(_Moffat's Southern Africa_, pp. 305-325), and in Arabia
(_Niebuhr_, _Desc. de l'Arabie_, pp. 237, 238).
Coming to a state of society nearer our own, we find that in the
ninth century it was taken for granted in Christian countries
that wind and hail were the work of wizards (_Neander's Hist. of
the Church_, vol. vi. pp. 118, 139); that similar views passed on
to the sixteenth century, and were sanctioned by Luther (_Maury_,
_Légendes Pieuses_, pp. 18, 19); and finally, that when Swinburne
was in Spain, only eighty years ago, he found the clergy on the
point of putting an end to the opera, because they 'attributed
the want of rain to the influence of that ungodly entertainment.'
_Swinburne's Travels through Spain in 1775 and 1776_, vol. i. p.
177, 2nd edit. London, 1787.
[628] See some remarks by the Rev. Mr. Ward, which strike me as rather
incautious, and which certainly are dangerous to his own
profession, as increasing the hostility between it and science,
in _Ward's Ideal of a Christian Church_, p. 278. What Coleridge
has said, is worth attending to: see _The Friend_, vol. iii. pp.
222, 223.
[629] M. Kohl, whose acuteness as a traveller is well known, has found
that the agricultural classes are the 'most blindly ignorant and
prejudiced' of all. _Kohl's Russia_, p. 365. And Sir R.
Murchison, who has enjoyed extensive means of observation,
familiarly mentions the 'credulous farmers.' _Murchison's
Siluria_, p. 61. In Asia, exactly the same tendency has been
noticed: see _Marsden's Hist. of Sumatra_, p. 63. Some curious
evidence of agricultural superstitions respecting the weather may
be seen in _Monteil_, _Hist. des divers Etats_, vol. iii. pp. 31,
39.
It would be easy, by an extension of these remarks, to show how the
progress of manufactures, besides increasing the national wealth, has
done immense service to civilization, by inspiring Man with a confidence
in his own resources;[630] and how, by giving rise to a new class of
employments, it has, if I may so say, shifted the scene in which
superstition is most likely to dwell. But to trace this would carry me
beyond my present limits; and the illustrations already given are
sufficient to explain how the theological spirit must have been
diminished by that love of experimental science, which forms one of the
principal features in the reign of Charles II.[631]
[630] In this point of view, the opposite tendencies of agriculture and
manufactures are judiciously contrasted by Mr. Porter, at the end
of his essay on the _Statistics of Agriculture_, _Journal of the
Statist. Soc._ vol. ii. pp. 295, 296.
[631] Indeed, there never has been a period in England in which physical
experiments were so fashionable. This is merely worth observing
as a symptom of the age, since Charles II. and the nobles were
not likely to add, and did not add, anything to our knowledge;
and their patronage of science, such as it was, degraded it
rather than advanced it. Still, the prevalence of the taste is
curious; and in addition to the picture drawn by Mr. Macaulay
(_Hist. of England_, 1st edit. vol. i. pp. 408-412), I may refer
the reader to _Monconys' Voyages_, vol. iii. p. 31; _Sorbiere's
Voyage to England_, pp. 32, 33; _Evelyn's Diary_, vol. ii. pp.
199, 286; _Pepys' Diary_, vol. i. p. 375, vol. ii. p. 34, vol.
iii. p. 85, vol. iv. p. 229; _Burnet's Own Time_, vol. i. pp.
171, 322, vol. ii. p. 275; _Burnet's Lives_, p. 144; _Campbell's
Chief-Justices_, vol. i. p. 582.
I have now laid before the reader what I conceive to be the point of
view from which we ought to estimate a period whose true nature seems to
me to have been grievously misunderstood. Those political writers who
judge events without regard to that intellectual development of which
they are but a part, will find much to condemn, and scarcely anything to
approve, in the reign of Charles II. By such authors, I shall be
censured for having travelled out of that narrow path in which history
has been too often confined. And yet I am at a loss to perceive how it
is possible, except by the adoption of such a course, to understand a
period which, on a superficial view, is full of the grossest
inconsistencies. This difficulty will be rendered very obvious, if we
compare for a moment the nature of the government of Charles with the
great things which, under that government, were peaceably effected.
Never before was there such a want of apparent connexion between the
means and the end. If we look only at the characters of the rulers, and
at their foreign policy, we must pronounce the reign of Charles II. to
be the worst that has ever been seen in England. If, on the other hand,
we confine our observations to the laws which were passed, and to the
principles which were established, we shall be obliged to confess that
this same reign forms one of the brightest epochs in our national
annals. Politically and morally, there were to be found in the
government all the elements of confusion, of weakness, and of crime. The
king himself was a mean and spiritless voluptuary, without the morals of
a Christian, and almost without the feelings of a man.[632] His
ministers, with the exception of Clarendon, whom he hated for his
virtues, had not one of the attributes of statesmen, and nearly all of
them were pensioned by the crown of France.[633] The weight of taxation
was increased,[634] while the security of the kingdom was
diminished.[635] By the forced surrender of the charters of the towns,
our municipal rights were endangered.[636] By shutting the exchequer,
our national credit was destroyed.[637] Though immense sums were spent
in maintaining our naval and military power, we were left so
defenceless, that when a war broke out, which had long been preparing,
we seemed suddenly to be taken by surprise. Such was the miserable
incapacity of the government, that the fleets of Holland were able, not
only to ride triumphant round our coasts, but to sail up the Thames,
attack our arsenals, burn our ships, and insult the metropolis of
England.[638] Yet, notwithstanding all these things, it is an undoubted
fact, that in this same reign of Charles II. more steps were taken in
the right direction than had been taken, in any period of equal length,
during the twelve centuries we had occupied the soil of Britain. By the
mere force of that intellectual movement, which was unwittingly
supported by the crown, there were effected, in the course of a few
years, reforms which changed the face of society.[639] The two great
obstacles by which the nation had long been embarrassed, consisted of a
spiritual tyranny and a territorial tyranny: the tyranny of the church
and the tyranny of the nobles. An attempt was now made to remedy these
evils; not by palliatives, but by striking at the power of the classes
who did the mischief. For now it was that a law was placed on the
statute-book, taking away that celebrated writ, which enabled the
bishops or their delegates to cause those men to be burned whose
religion was different to their own.[640] Now it was that the clergy
were deprived of the privilege of taxing themselves, and were forced to
submit to an assessment made by the ordinary legislature.[641] Now, too,
there was enacted a law forbidding any bishop, or any ecclesiastical
court, to tender the _ex-officio_ oath, by which the church had hitherto
enjoyed the power of compelling a suspected person to criminate
himself.[642] In regard to the nobles, it was also during the reign of
Charles II. that the House of Lords, after a sharp struggle, was obliged
to abandon its pretensions to an original jurisdiction in civil suits;
and thus lost for ever an important resource for extending its own
influence.[643] It was in the same reign that there was settled the
right of the people to be taxed entirely by their representatives; the
House of Commons having ever since retained the sole power of proposing
money bills, and regulating the amount of imposts, merely leaving to the
Peers the form of consenting to what has been already determined.[644]
These were the attempts which were made to bridle the clergy and the
nobles. But there were also effected other things of equal importance.
By the destruction of the scandalous prerogatives of Purveyance and
Preemption, a limit was set to the power of the sovereign to vex his
refractory subjects.[645] By the Habeas Corpus Act, the liberty of every
Englishman was made as certain as law could make it; it being guaranteed
to him, that if accused of crime, he, instead of languishing in prison,
as had often been the case, should be brought to a fair and speedy
trial.[646] By the Statute of Frauds and Perjuries, a security hitherto
unknown was conferred upon private property.[647] By the abolition of
general impeachments, an end was put to a great engine of tyranny, with
which powerful and unscrupulous men had frequently ruined their
political adversaries.[648] By the cessation of those laws which
restricted the liberty of printing, there was laid the foundation of
that great Public Press, which, more than any other single cause, has
diffused among the people a knowledge of their own power, and has thus,
to an almost incredible extent, aided the progress of English
civilization.[649] And, to complete this noble picture, there were
finally destroyed those feudal incidents, which our Norman conquerors
had imposed,--the military tenures; the court of wards; the fines for
alienation; the right of forfeiture for marriage by reason of tenure;
the aids, the homages, the escuages, the primer seisins; and all those
mischievous subtleties, of which the mere names sound in modern ears as
a wild and barbarous jargon, but which pressed upon our ancestors as
real and serious evils.[650]
[632] His treatment of his young wife immediately after marriage is
perhaps the worst thing recorded of this base and contemptible
prince. _Lister's Life of Clarendon_, vol. ii. pp. 145-153. This
is matter of proof; but Burnet (_Own Time_, vol. i. p. 522, and
vol. ii. p. 467) whispers a horrible suspicion, which I cannot
believe to be true, even of Charles II., and which Harris, who
has collected some evidence of his astounding profligacy, does
not mention, though he quotes one of the passages in Burnet.
_Harris's Lives of the Stuarts_, vol. v. pp. 36-43. However, as
Dr. Parr says, in reference to another accusation against him,
'There is little occasion to blacken the memory of that wicked
monarch, Charles II., by the aid of invidious conjectures.'
_Notes on James II._ in _Parr's Works_, vol. iv. p. 477. Compare
_Fox's History of James II._ p. 71.
[633] Even Clarendon has been charged with receiving bribes from
Louis XIV.; but for this there appears to be no good authority.
Compare _Hallam's Const. Hist._ vol. ii. pp. 66, 67 note, with
_Campbell's Chancellors_, vol. iii, p. 213.
[634] _Lister's Life of Clarendon_, vol. ii. p. 377; _Harris's Lives of
the Stuarts_, vol. iv. pp. 340-344.
[635] Immediately after the Restoration, the custom began of appointing
to naval commands incompetent youths of birth, to the
discouragement of those able officers who had been employed under
Cromwell. Compare _Burnet's Own Time_, vol. i. p. 290, with
_Pepys' Diary_, vol. ii. p. 413, vol. iii. pp. 68, 72.
[636] _Harris's Lives of the Stuarts_, vol. v. pp. 323-328. The court
was so bent on abrogating the charter of the city of London, that
Saunders was made chief-justice for the express purpose. See
_Campbell's Chief-Justices_, vol. ii. p. 59. Roger North says
(_Lives of the Norths_, vol. ii. p. 67), 'Nothing was accounted
at court so meritorious as the procuring of charters, as the
language then was.' Compare _Bulstrode's Memoirs_, pp. 379, 388.
[637] The panic caused by this scandalous robbery is described by
De Foe; _Wilson's Life of De Foe_, vol. i. p. 52. See also
_Calamy's Life of Himself_, vol. i. p. 78; _Parker's Hist. of his
Own Time_, pp. 141-143. The amount stolen by the king is
estimated at 1,328,526_l._ _Sinclair's Hist. of the Revenue_,
vol. i. p. 315. According to Lord Campbell, 'nearly a million and
a half.' _Lives of the Chancellors_, vol. iv. p. 113.
[638] There is a very curious account in _Pepys' Diary_, vol. iii.
pp. 242-264, of the terror felt by the Londoners on this
occasion. Pepys himself buried his gold (p. 261 and pp. 376-379).
Evelyn (_Diary_, vol. ii. p. 287) says: 'The alarme was so
greate, that it put both country and citty into a paniq, feare,
and consternation, such as I hope I shall never see more; every
body was flying, none knew why or whither.'
[639] The most important of these reforms were carried, as is nearly
always the case, in opposition to the real wishes of the ruling
classes. Charles II. and James II. often said of the Habeas
Corpus Act, 'that a government could not subsist with such a
law.' _Dalrymple's Memoirs_, vol. ii. p. 104. Lord-Keeper
Guilford was even opposed to the abolition of military tenures.
'He thought,' says his brother, 'the taking away of the tenures a
desperate wound to the liberties of the people of England.'
_Lives of the Norths_, vol. ii. p. 82. These are the sort of men
by whom great nations are governed. A passage in _Life of James,
by Himself_, edit. Clarke, vol. ii. p. 621, confirms the
statement in Dalrymple, so far as James is concerned. This should
be compared with a letter from Louis XIV., in the Barillon
correspondence. Appendix to _Fox's James II._ p. cxxiv.
[640] _Blackstone's Commentaries_, vol. iv. p. 48; _Campbell's
Chancellors_, vol. iii. p. 431. This destruction of the writ _De
Hæretico comburendo_ was in 1677. It is noticed in _Palmer's
Treatise on the Church_, vol. i. p. 500; and in _Collier's
Ecclesiast. Hist._ vol. viii. p. 478.
[641] This was in 1664. See the account of it in _Collier's Ecclesiast.
Hist._ vol. viii. pp. 463-466. Collier, who is evidently
displeased by the change, says: 'The consenting, therefore, to be
taxed by the temporal Commons, makes the clergy more dependent on
a foreign body, takes away the right of disposing of their own
money, and lays their estates in some measure at discretion.' See
also, on the injury this has inflicted on the church, _Lathbury's
Hist. of Convocation_, pp. 259, 260. And Coleridge (_Literary
Remains_, vol. iv. pp. 152, 153) points this out as
characterizing one of the three 'grand evil epochs of our present
church.' So marked, however, was the tendency of that time, that
this most important measure was peaceably effected by an
arrangement between Sheldon and Clarendon. See the notes by
Onslow in _Burnet's Own Time_, vol. i. p. 340, vol. iv. pp. 508,
509. Compare Lord Camden's statement (_Parl. Hist._ vol. xvi. p.
169) with the speech of Lord Bathurst (vol. xxii. p. 77); and of
Lord Temple on Tooke's case (vol. xxxv. p. 1357). Mr. Carwithen
(_Hist. of the Church of England_, vol. ii. p. 354, Oxford, 1849)
grieves over 'this deprivation of the liberties of the English
clergy.'
[642] 13 Car. II. c. 12. Compare _Stephens's Life of Tooke_, vol. i.
pp. 169, 170, with _Blackstone's Commentaries_, vol. iii. p. 101.
Mr. Hallam (_Const. Hist._ vol. i. pp. 197, 198) has adduced
evidence of the way in which the clergy were accustomed to injure
their opponents by the _ex-officio_ oath.
[643] This was the issue of the famous controversy respecting Skinner,
in 1669; and 'from this time,' says Mr. Hallam, 'the Lords have
tacitly abandoned all pretensions to an original jurisdiction in
civil suits.' _Const. Hist._ vol. ii. p. 184. There is an account
of this case of Skinner, which was connected with the East-India
Company, in _Mill's Hist. of India_, vol. i. pp. 102, 103.
[644] _Hallam's Const. Hist._ vol. ii. pp. 189-192; and _Eccleston's
English Antiquities_, p. 326. The disputes between the two houses
respecting taxation, are noticed very briefly in _Parker's Hist.
of his Own Time_, pp. 135, 136.
[645] The 'famous rights of purveyance and preemption' were abolished by
12 Car. II. c. 24. _Hallam's Const. Hist._ vol. ii. p. 11. Burke,
in his magnificent speech on Economical Reform, describes the
abuses of the old system of purveyance. _Burke's Works_, vol. i.
p. 239. See also _Kemble's Saxons in England_, vol. ii. p. 88,
note; _Barrington on the Statutes_, pp. 183-185, 237; _Lingard's
Hist. of England_, vol. ii. pp. 338, 339; _Sinclair's Hist. of
the Revenue_, vol. i. p. 232; _Parl. Hist._ vol. iii. p. 1299.
These passages will give an idea of the iniquities practised
under this 'right,' which, like most gross injustices, was one of
the good old customs of the British constitution, being at least
as ancient as Canute. See _Allen on the Royal Prerogative_, p.
152. Indeed, a recent writer of considerable learning (_Spence_,
_Origin of the Laws of Europe_, p. 319) derives it from the Roman
law. A bill had been brought in to take it away in 1656. See
_Burton's Cromwellian Diary_, vol. i. p. 81. When Adam Smith
wrote, it still existed in France and Germany. _Wealth of
Nations_, book iii. chap. ii. p. 161.
[646] On the Habeas Corpus Act, which became law in 1679, see
_Campbell's Chancellors_, vol. iii. pp. 345-347; _Mackintosh_,
_Revolution of 1688_, p. 49; and _Lingard's Hist. of England_,
vol. viii. p. 17. The peculiarities of this law, as compared with
the imitations of it in other countries, are clearly stated in
_Meyer_, _Esprit des Institutions Judiciaires_, vol. ii. p. 283.
Mr. Lister (_Life of Clarendon_, vol. ii. p. 454) says:
'Imprisonment in gaols beyond the seas was not prevented by law
till the passing of the Habeas Corpus Act, in 1679.'
[647] Blackstone (_Commentaries_, vol. iv. p. 439) calls this 'a great
and necessary security to private property;' and Lord Campbell
(_Chancellors_, vol. iii. p. 423) terms it 'the most important
and most beneficial piece of juridical legislation of which we
can boast.' On its effects, compare Jones's valuable _Commentary
on Isæus_ (_Works of Sir W. Jones_, vol. iv. p. 239) with
_Story's Conflict of Laws_, pp. 521, 522, 627, 884; and _Tayler
on Statute Law_, in _Journal of Statistical Society_, vol. xvii.
p. 150.
[648] Lord Campbell (_Lives of the Chancellors_, vol. iii. p. 247) says,
that the struggle in 1667 'put an end to general impeachments.'
[649] Printing at first was regulated by royal proclamations; then by
the Star-chamber; and afterwards by the Long Parliament. The
decrees of the Star-chamber were taken as the basis of 13 and 14
Car. II. c. 33; but this act expired in 1679, and was not renewed
during the reign of Charles II. Compare _Blackstone's Comment._
vol. iv. p. 152, with _Hunt's Hist. of Newspapers_, vol. i. p.
154, and _Fox's Hist. of James II._ p. 146.
[650] The fullest account I have seen in any history, of this great
Revolution, which swept away the traditions and the language of
feudalism, is that given in _Harris's Lives of the Stuarts_, vol.
iv. pp. 369-378. But Harris, though an industrious collector, was
a man of slender ability, and not at all aware of the real nature
of a change, of which the obvious and immediately practical
results formed the smallest part. The true point of view is, that
it was a formal recognition by the legislature that the Middle
Ages were extinct, and that it was necessary to inaugurate a more
modern and innovating policy. Hereafter I shall have occasion to
examine this in detail, and show how it was merely a symptom of a
revolutionary movement. In the meantime the reader may refer to
the very short notices in _Dalrymple's Hist. of Feudal Property_,
p. 89; _Blackstone's Comment._ vol. ii. pp. 76, 77; _Hallam's
Const. Hist._ vol. ii. p. 11; _Parl. Hist._ vol. iv. pp. 53, 167,
168; _Meyer_, _Institutions Judiciaires_, vol. ii. p. 58.
These were the things which were done in the reign of Charles II.; and
if we consider the miserable incompetence of the king, the idle
profligacy of his court, the unblushing venality of his ministers, the
constant conspiracies to which the country was exposed from within, and
the unprecedented insults to which it was subjected from without; if we,
moreover, consider that to all this there were added two natural
calamities of the most grievous description,--a Great Plague, which
thinned society in all its ranks, and scattered confusion through the
kingdom, and a Great Fire, which, besides increasing the mortality from
the pestilence, destroyed in a moment those accumulations of industry by
which industry itself is nourished;--if we put all these things
together, how can we reconcile inconsistencies apparently so gross? How
could so wonderful a progress be made in the face of these unparalleled
disasters? How could such men, under such circumstances, effect such
improvements? These are questions which our political compilers are
unable to answer; because they look too much at the peculiarities of
individuals, and too little at the temper of the age in which those
individuals live. Such writers do not perceive that the history of every
civilized country is the history of its intellectual development, which
kings, statesmen, and legislators are more likely to retard than to
hasten; because, however great their power may be, they are at best the
accidental and insufficient representatives of the spirit of their time;
and because, so far from being able to regulate the movements of the
national mind, they themselves form the smallest part of it, and, in a
general view of the progress of Man, are only to be regarded as the
puppets who strut and fret their hour upon a little stage; while, beyond
them, and on every side of them, are forming opinions and principles
which they can scarcely perceive, but by which alone the whole course of
human affairs is ultimately governed.
The truth is, that the vast legislative reforms, for which the reign of
Charles II. is so remarkable, merely form a part of that movement,
which, though traceable to a much earlier period, had only for three
generations been in undisguised operation. These important improvements
were the result of that bold, sceptical, inquiring, and reforming
spirit, which had now seized the three great departments of Theology, of
Science, and of Politics. The old principles of tradition, of authority,
and of dogma, were gradually becoming weaker; and of course, in the same
proportion, there was diminished the influence of the classes by whom
those principles were chiefly upheld. As the power of particular
sections of society thus declined, the power of the people at large
increased. The real interests of the nation began to be perceived, so
soon as the superstitions were dispersed by which those interests had
long been obscured. This, I believe, is the real solution of what at
first seems a curious problem,--namely, how it was that such
comprehensive reforms should have been accomplished in so bad, and in
many respects so infamous, a reign. It is, no doubt, true, that those
reforms were essentially the result of the intellectual march of the
age; but, so far from being made in spite of the vices of the sovereign,
they were actually aided by them. With the exception of the needy
profligates who thronged his court, all classes of men soon learned to
despise a king who was a drunkard, a libertine, and a hypocrite; who had
neither shame nor sensibility; and who, in point of honour, was unworthy
to enter the presence of the meanest of his subjects. To have the throne
filled for a quarter of a century by such a man as this, was the surest
way of weakening that ignorant and indiscriminate loyalty, to which the
people have often sacrificed their dearest rights. Thus, the character
of the king, merely considered from this point of view, was eminently
favourable to the growth of national liberty.[651] But the advantage
did not stop there. The reckless debaucheries of Charles made him abhor
everything approaching to restraint; and this gave him a dislike to a
class, whose profession, at least, pre-supposes a conduct of more than
ordinary purity. The consequence was, that he, not from views of
enlightened policy, but merely from a love of vicious indulgence, always
had a distaste for the clergy; and, so far from advancing their power,
frequently expressed for them an open contempt.[652] His most intimate
friends directed against them those coarse and profligate jokes which
are preserved in the literature of the time; and which, in the opinion
of the courtiers, were to be ranked among the noblest specimens of human
wit. From men of this sort the church had, indeed, little to apprehend;
but their language, and the favour with which it was received, are part
of the symptoms by which we may study the temper of that age. Many other
illustrations will occur to most readers; I may, however, mention one,
which is interesting on account of the eminence of the philosopher
concerned in it. The most dangerous opponent of the clergy in the
seventeenth century, was certainly Hobbes, the subtlest dialectician of
his time; a writer, too, of singular clearness, and, among British
metaphysicians, inferior only to Berkeley. This profound thinker
published several speculations very unfavourable to the church, and
directly opposed to principles which are essential to ecclesiastical
authority. As a natural consequence, he was hated by the clergy; his
doctrines were declared to be highly pernicious; and he was accused of
wishing to subvert the national religion, and corrupt the national
morals.[653] So far did this proceed, that, during his life, and for
several years after his death, every man who ventured to think for
himself was stigmatized as a Hobbist, or, as it was sometimes called, a
Hobbian.[654] This marked hostility on the part of the clergy was a
sufficient recommendation to the favour of Charles. The king, even
before his accession, had imbibed many of his principles;[655] and,
after the Restoration, he treated the author with what was deemed a
scandalous respect. He protected him from his enemies; he somewhat
ostentatiously hung up his portrait in his own private room at
Whitehall;[656] and he even conferred a pension on this, the most
formidable opponent who had yet appeared against the spiritual
hierarchy.[657]
[651] Mr. Hallam has a noble passage on the services rendered to English
civilization by the vices of the English court: 'We are, however,
much indebted to the memory of Barbara Duchess of Cleveland,
Louisa Duchess of Portsmouth, and Mrs. Eleanor Gwyn. We owe a
tribute of gratitude to the Mays, the Killigrews, the
Chiffinches, and the Grammonts. They played a serviceable part in
ridding the kingdom of its besotted loyalty. They saved our
forefathers from the Star-chamber and the High-commission court;
they laboured in their vocation against standing armies and
corruption; they pressed forward the great ultimate security of
English freedom--the expulsion of the House of Stuart.' _Hallam's
Const. Hist._ vol. ii. p. 50.
[652] Burnet (_Own Time_, vol. i. p. 448) tells us that, in 1667, the
king, even at the council-board, expressed himself against the
bishops, and said, that the clergy 'thought of nothing but to get
good benefices, and to keep a good table.' See also, on his
dislike to the bishops, vol. ii. p. 22; and _Pepys' Diary_, vol.
iv. p. 2. In another place, vol. iv. p. 42, Pepys writes: 'And I
believe the hierarchy will in a little time be shaken, whether
they will or no; the king being offended with them, and set upon
it, as I hear.' Evelyn, in a conversation with Pepys, noticed
with regret such conduct of Charles, 'that a bishop shall never
be seen about him, as the king of France hath always.' _Pepys_,
vol. iii. p. 201. Evelyn, in his benevolent way, ascribes this to
'the negligence of the clergy;' but history teaches us that the
clergy have never neglected kings, except when the king has first
neglected them. Sir John Reresby gives a curious account of a
conversation Charles II. held with him respecting 'mitred heads,'
in which the feeling of the king is very apparent. _Reresby's
Travels and Memoirs_, p. 238.
[653] On the animosity of the clergy against Hobbes, and on the extent
to which he reciprocated it, compare _Aubrey's Letters and
Lives_, vol. ii. pp. 532, 631; _Tennemann_, _Gesch. der Philos._
vol. x. p. 111; with the angry language of Burnet (_Own Time_,
vol. i. p. 322), and of Whiston (_Memoirs_, p. 251). See also
_Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses_, edit. Bliss, vol. iii. p. 1211.
Monconys, who was in London in 1663, says of Hobbes, 'Il me dit
l'aversion que tous les gens d'église tant catholiques que
protestans avoient pour lui.' _Monconys' Voyages_, vol. iii. p.
43; and p. 115, 'M. Hobbes, que je trouvai toujours fort ennemi
des prêtres catholiques et des protestans.' About the same time,
Sorbiere was in London; and he writes respecting Hobbes: 'I know
not how it comes to pass, the clergy are afraid of him, and so
are the Oxford mathematicians and their adherents; wherefore his
majesty (Charles II.) was pleased to make a very good comparison
when he told me, he was like a bear, whom they baited with dogs
to try him.' _Sorbiere's Voyage to England_, p. 40.
[654] This was a common expression for whoever attacked established
opinions late in the seventeenth, and even early in the
eighteenth century. For instances of it, see _Baxter's Life of
Himself_, folio, 1696, part iii. p. 48; _Boyle's Works_, vol. v.
pp. 505, 510; _Monk's Life of Bentley_, vol. i. p. 41; _Vernon
Correspond._ vol. iii. p. 13; _King's Life of Locke_, vol. i. p.
191; _Brewster's Life of Newton_, vol. ii. p. 149.
[655] Burnet says, they 'made deep and lasting impressions on the king's
mind.' _Own Time_, vol. i. p. 172.
[656] A likeness, by Cooper. See _Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses_, edit.
Bliss, vol. iii. p. 1208.
[657] _Sorbiere's Voyage to England_, p. 39; _Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses_,
vol. iii. p. 1208. On the popularity of the works of Hobbes in
the reign of Charles II. compare _Pepys' Diary_, vol. iv. p. 164,
with _Lives of the Norths_, vol. iii. p. 339.
If we look for a moment at the ecclesiastical appointments of Charles,
we shall find evidence of the same tendency. In his reign, the highest
dignities in the church were invariably conferred upon men who were
deficient either in ability or in honesty. It would perhaps be an
over-refinement to ascribe to the king a deliberate plan for lowering
the reputation of the episcopal bench; but it is certain, that if he had
such a plan, he followed the course most likely to effect his purpose.
For it is no exaggeration to say, that, during his life, the leading
English prelates were, without exception, either incapable or insincere;
they were unable to defend what they really believed, or else they did
not believe what they openly professed. Never before were the interests
of the Anglican church so feebly guarded. The first Archbishop of
Canterbury appointed by Charles was Juxon, whose deficiencies were
notorious; and of whom his friends could only say, that his want of
ability was compensated by the goodness of his intentions.[658] When he
died, the king raised up as his successor Sheldon, whom he had
previously made Bishop of London; and who not only brought discredit on
his order by acts of gross intolerance,[659] but who was so regardless
of the common decencies of his station, that he used to amuse his
associates, by having exhibitions in his own house, imitating the way in
which the Presbyterians delivered their sermons.[660] After the death of
Sheldon, Charles appointed to the archbishopric Sancroft; whose
superstitious fancies exposed him to the contempt even of his own
profession, and who was as much despised as Sheldon had been hated.[661]
In the rank immediately below this, we find the same principle at work.
The three Archbishops of York, during the reign of Charles II., were
Frewen, Stearn, and Dolben; who were so utterly devoid of ability, that
notwithstanding their elevated position, they are altogether forgotten,
not one reader out of a thousand having ever heard their names.[662]
[658] Bishop Burnet says of him, at his appointment: 'As he was never a
great divine, so he was now superannuated.' _Own Time_, vol. i.
p. 303.
[659] Of which his own friend, Bishop Parker, gives a specimen. See
_Parker's History of his own Time_, pp. 31-33. Compare _Neal's
Hist. of the Puritans_, vol. iv. p. 429; _Wilson's Mem. of De
Foe_, vol. i. p. 46.
[660] In 1669, Pepys was at one of these entertainments, which took
place not only at the house, but in the presence of the
archbishop. See the scandalous details in _Pepys' Diary_, vol.
iv. pp. 321, 322; or in _Wilson's De Foe_, vol. i. pp. 44, 45.
[661] Burnet, who knew Sancroft, calls him 'a poor-spirited and fearful
man' (_Own Time_, vol. iii. p. 354); and mentions (vol. iii. p.
138) an instance of his superstition, which will be easily
believed by whoever has read his ridiculous sermons, which D'Oyly
has wickedly published. See Appendix to _D'Oyly's Sancroft_, pp.
339-420. Dr. Lake says that everybody was amazed when it was
known that Sancroft was to be archbishop. _Lake's Diary_, 30th
Dec. 1677, p. 18, in vol. i. of the _Camden Miscellany_, 1847,
4to. His character, so far as he had one, is fairly drawn by Dr.
Birch: 'slow, timorous, and narrow-spirited, but at the same time
a good, honest, and well-meaning man.' _Birch's Life of
Tillotson_, p. 151. See also respecting him, _Macaulay's Hist. of
England_, vol. ii. p. 616, vol. iii. p. 77, vol. iv. pp. 40-42.
[662] Frewen was so obscure a man, that there is no life of him either
in _Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary_, or in Rose's more
recent, but inferior work. The little that is known of Stearn, or
Sterne, is unfavourable. Compare _Burnet_, vol. ii. p. 427, with
_Baxter's Life of Himself_, folio, 1696, part ii. p. 338. And of
Dolben I have been unable to collect anything of interest, except
that he had a good library. See the traditionary account in
_Jones's Memoirs of Bishop Horne_, p. 66.
Such appointments as these are indeed striking; and what makes them more
so, is, that they were by no means necessary; they were not forced on
the king by court intrigue, nor was there a lack of more competent men.
The truth seems to be, that Charles was unwilling to confer
ecclesiastical promotion upon any one who had ability enough to increase
the authority of the church, and restore it to its former pre-eminence.
At his accession, the two ablest of the clergy were undoubtedly Jeremy
Taylor and Isaac Barrow. Both of them were notorious for their loyalty;
both of them were men of unspotted virtue; and both of them have left a
reputation which will hardly perish while the English language is
remembered. But Taylor, though he had married the king's sister,[663]
was treated with marked neglect; and, being exiled to an Irish
bishopric, had to pass the remainder of his life in what, at that time,
was truly called a barbarous country.[664] As to Barrow, who, in point
of genius, was probably superior to Taylor,[665] he had the
mortification of seeing the most incapable men raised to the highest
posts in the church, while he himself was unnoticed; and,
notwithstanding that his family had greatly suffered in the royal
cause,[666] he received no sort of preferment until five years before
his death, when the king conferred on him the mastership of Trinity
College, Cambridge.[667]
[663] His wife was Joanna Bridges, a bastard of Charles I. Compare
_Notes and Queries_, vol. vii. p. 305, with _Heber's Life of
Jeremy Taylor_, in _Taylor's Works_, vol. i. p. xxxiv. Bishop
Heber, p. xxxv. adds, 'But, notwithstanding the splendour of such
an alliance, there is no reason to believe that it added
materially to Taylor's income.'
[664] Coleridge (_Lit. Remains_, vol. iii. p. 208) says, that this
neglect of Jeremy Taylor by Charles 'is a problem of which
perhaps his virtues present the most probable solution.'
[665] Superior, certainly, in comprehensiveness, and in the range of his
studies; so that it is aptly said by a respectable authority,
that he was at once 'the great precursor of Sir Isaac Newton, and
the pride of the English pulpit.' _Wordsworth's Ecclesiast.
Biog._ vol. iv. p. 344. See also, respecting Barrow, _Montucla_,
_Hist. des Mathémat._ vol. ii. pp. 88, 89, 359, 360, 504, 505,
vol. iii. pp. 436-438.
[666] 'His father having suffered greatly in his estate by his
attachment to the royal cause.' _Chalmers's Biog. Dict._ vol. iv.
p. 39.
[667] Barrow, displeased at not receiving preferment after the
Restoration, wrote the lines:
'Te magis optavit rediturum Carole nemo;
Et sensit nemo te rediisse minus.'
_Hamilton's Life of Barrow_, in _Barrow's Works_, Edinb. 1845,
vol. i. p. xxiii.
It is hardly necessary to point out how all this must have tended to
weaken the church, and accelerate that great movement for which the
reign of Charles II. is remarkable.[668] At the same time, there were
many other circumstances which, in this preliminary sketch, it is
impossible to notice, but which were stamped with the general character
of revolt against ancient authority. In a subsequent volume, this will
be placed in a still clearer light, because I shall have an opportunity
of bringing forward evidence which, from the abundance of its details,
would be unsuited to the present Introduction. Enough, however, has been
stated, to indicate the general march of the English mind, and supply
the reader with a clue by which he may understand those still more
complicated events, which, as the seventeenth century advanced, began to
thicken upon us.
[668] Everything Mr. Macaulay has said on the contempt into which the
clergy fell in the reign of Charles II. is perfectly accurate;
and from evidence which I have collected, I know that this very
able writer, of whose immense research few people are competent
judges, has rather understated the case than overstated it. On
several subjects I should venture to differ from Mr. Macaulay;
but I cannot refrain from expressing my admiration of his
unwearied diligence, of the consummate skill with which he has
arranged his materials, and of the noble love of liberty which
animates his entire work. These are qualities which will long
survive the aspersions of his puny detractors,--men who, in point
of knowledge and ability, are unworthy to loosen the shoe-latchet
of him they foolishly attack.
A few years before the death of Charles II., the clergy made a great
effort to recover their former power by reviving those doctrines of
Passive Obedience and Divine Right, which are obviously favourable to
the progress of superstition.[669] But as the English intellect was now
sufficiently advanced to reject such dogmas, this futile attempt only
increased the opposition between the interests of the people as a body,
and the interests of the clergy as a class. Scarcely had this scheme
been defeated, when the sudden death of Charles placed on the throne a
prince whose most earnest desire was to restore the Catholic church, and
reinstate among us that mischievous system which openly boasts of
subjugating the reason of Man. This change in affairs was, if we
consider it in its ultimate results, the most fortunate circumstance
which could have happened to our country. In spite of the difference of
their religion, the English clergy had always displayed an affection
towards James, whose reverence for the priesthood they greatly admired;
though they were anxious that the warmth of his affections should be
lavished on the Church of England and not on the Church of Rome. They
were sensible of the advantages which would accrue to their own order,
if his piety could be turned into a new channel.[670] They saw that it
was for his interest to abandon his religion; and they thought that to a
man so cruel and so vicious, his own interest would be the sole
consideration.[671] The consequence was, that in one of the most
critical moments of his life, they made in his favour a great and
successful effort; and they not only used all their strength to defeat
the bill by which it was proposed to exclude him from the succession,
but when the measure was rejected, they presented an address to Charles,
congratulating him on the result.[672] When James actually mounted the
throne, they continued to display the same spirit. Whether they still
hoped for his conversion, or whether, in their eagerness to persecute
the dissenters, they overlooked the danger to their own church, is
uncertain; but it is one of the most singular and unquestionable facts
in our history, that for some time there existed a strict alliance
between a Protestant hierarchy and a Popish king.[673] The terrible
crimes which were the result of this compact are but too notorious. But
what is more worthy of attention is, the circumstance that caused the
dissolution of this conspiracy between the crown and the church. The
ground of the quarrel was an attempt made by the king to effect, in some
degree, a religious toleration. By the celebrated Test and Corporation
Acts, it had been ordered, that all persons who were employed by
government should be compelled, under a heavy penalty, to receive the
sacrament according to the rites of the English church. The offence of
James was, that he now issued what was called a Declaration of
Indulgence, in which he announced his intention of suspending the
execution of these laws.[674] From this moment, the position of the two
great parties was entirely changed. The bishops clearly perceived that
the statutes which it was thus attempted to abrogate, were highly
favourable to their own power; and hence, in their opinion, formed an
essential part of the constitution of a Christian country. They had
willingly combined with James, while he assisted them in persecuting men
who worshipped God in a manner different from themselves.[675] So long
as this compact held good, they were indifferent as to matters which
they considered to be of minor importance. They looked on in silence,
while the king was amassing the materials with which he hoped to turn a
free government into an absolute monarchy.[676] They saw Jeffreys and
Kirke torturing their fellow-subjects; they saw the gaols crowded with
prisoners, and the scaffold streaming with blood.[677] They were well
pleased that some of the best and ablest men in the kingdom should be
barbarously persecuted; that Baxter should be thrown into prison, and
that Howe should be forced into exile. They witnessed with composure the
most revolting cruelties, because the victims of them were the opponents
of the English church. Although the minds of men were filled with terror
and with loathing, the bishops made no complaint. They preserved their
loyalty unimpaired, and insisted on the necessity of humble submission
to the Lord's anointed.[678] But the moment James proposed to protect
against persecution those who were hostile to the church; the moment he
announced his intention of breaking down that monopoly of offices and of
honours which the bishops had long secured for their own party;--the
moment this took place, the hierarchy became alive to the dangers with
which the country was threatened from the violence of so arbitrary a
prince.[679] The king had laid his hand on the ark, and the guardians of
the temple flew to arms. How could they tolerate a prince who would not
allow them to persecute their enemies? How could they support a
sovereign who sought to favour those who differed from the national
church? They soon determined on the line of conduct it behoved them to
take. With an almost unanimous voice, they refused to obey the order by
which the king commanded them to read in their churches the edict for
religious toleration.[680] Nor did they stop there. So great was their
enmity against him they had recently cherished, that they actually
applied for aid to those very dissenters whom, only a few weeks before,
they had hotly persecuted; seeking by magnificent promises to win over
to their side men they had hitherto hunted even to the death.[681] The
most eminent of the Nonconformists were far from being duped by this
sudden affection.[682] But their hatred of Popery, and their fear of the
ulterior designs of the king, prevailed over every other consideration;
and there arose that singular combination between churchmen and
dissenters, which has never since been repeated. This coalition, backed
by the general voice of the people, soon overturned the throne, and gave
rise to what is justly deemed one of the most important events in the
history of England.
[669] _Hallam's Const. Hist._ vol. ii. pp. 142, 143, 153-156; from which
it appears that this movement began about 1681. The clergy, as a
body, are naturally favourable to this doctrine; and the
following passage, published only twelve years ago, will give the
reader an idea of the views that some of them entertain. The Rev.
Mr. Sewell (_Christian Politics_, Lond. 1844, p. 157) says, that
the reigning prince is 'a being armed with supreme physical power
by the hand and permission of Providence; as such, the lord of
our property, the master of our lives, the fountain of honour,
the dispenser of law, before whom each subject must surrender his
will and conform his actions.... Who, when he errs, errs as a
man, and not as a king, and is responsible, not to man, but to
God.' And at p. 111, the same writer informs us that the church,
'with one uniform, unhesitating voice, has proclaimed the duty of
"passive obedience."' See also on this slavish tenet, as upheld
by the church, _Wordsworth's Ecclesiast. Biog._ vol. iv. p. 668;
_Life of Ken, by a Layman_, vol. ii. p. 523; _Lathbury's Hist. of
Convocation_, p. 228; _Lathbury's Nonjurors_, pp. 50, 135, 197;
and a letter from Nelson, author of the _Fasts and Festivals_, in
_Nichols's Lit. Anec._ vol. iv. p. 216. With good reason,
therefore, did Fox tell the House of Commons, that 'by being a
good churchman, a person might become a bad citizen.' _Parl.
Hist._ vol. xxix. p. 1377.
[670] The Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1678, was engaged in an attempt
to convert James; and in a letter to the Bishop of Winchester, he
notices the 'happy consequences' which would result from his
success. See this characteristic letter in _Clarendon Corresp._
vol. ii. pp. 465, 466. See also the motives of the bishops,
candidly but broadly stated, in Mr. Wilson's valuable work, _Life
of De Foe_, vol. i. p. 74.
[671] In a high-church pamphlet, published in 1682, against the Bill of
Exclusion, the cause of James is advocated; but the inconvenience
he would suffer by remaining a Catholic is strongly insisted
upon. See the wily remarks in _Somers Tracts_, vol. viii.
pp. 258, 259.
[672] _Wordsworth's Ecclesiast. Biog._ vol. iv. p. 665. On their
eagerness against the bill, see _Harris's Lives of the Stuarts_,
vol. v. p. 181; _Burnet's Own Time_, vol. ii. p. 246; _Somers
Tracts_, vol. x. pp. 216, 253; _Campbell's Chancellors_, vol.
iii. p. 353; _Carwithen's Hist. of the Church of England_, vol.
ii. p. 431.
[673] At the accession of James II. 'the pulpits throughout England
resounded with thanksgivings; and a numerous set of addresses
flattered his Majesty, in the strongest expressions, with
assurances of unshaken loyalty and obedience, without limitation
or reserve.' _Neal's Hist. of the Puritans_, vol. v. p. 2. See
also _Calamy's Life_, vol. i. p. 118.
[674] On the 18th March, 1687, the king announced to the Privy Council
that he had determined 'to grant, by his own authority, entire
liberty of conscience to all his subjects. On the 4th April
appeared the memorable Declaration of Indulgence.' _Macaulay's
Hist. of England_, vol. ii. p. 211; and see _Life of James II._,
edited by Clarke, vol. ii, p. 112. There is a summary of the
Declaration in _Neal's Hist. of the Puritans_, vol. v. pp. 30,
31. As to the second Declaration, see _Macaulay_, vol. ii. pp.
344, 345; _Clarendon Correspond._ vol. ii. p. 170.
[675] It was in the autumn of 1685, that the clergy and the government
persecuted the dissenters with the greatest virulence. See
_Macaulay's Hist._ vol. i. pp. 667, 668. Compare _Neal's Hist. of
the Puritans_, vol. v. pp. 4-12, with a letter from Lord
Clarendon, dated 21st December 1685, in _Clarendon Correspond._
vol. i. p. 192. It is said (_Burnet's Own Time_, vol. iii. pp.
175, 176), that on many occasions the church party made use of
the ecclesiastical courts to extort money from the
Nonconformists; and for confirmation of this, see _Mackintosh's
Revolution of 1688_, pp. 173, 640.
[676] It appears from the accounts in the War Office, that James, even
in the first year of his reign, had a standing army of nearly
20,000 men. _Mackintosh's Revolution_, pp. 3, 77, 688: 'A
disciplined army of about 20,000 men was, for the first time,
established during peace in this island.' As this naturally
inspired great alarm, the king gave out that the number did not
exceed 15,000. _Life of James II._, edited by Clarke, vol. ii.
pp. 52, 57.
[677] Compare _Burnet_, vol. iii. pp. 55-62, with _Dalrymple's Memoirs_,
vol. i. part i. book ii. pp. 198-203. Ken, so far as I remember,
was the only one who set his face against these atrocities. He
was a very humane man, and did what he could to mitigate the
sufferings of the prisoners in Monmouth's rebellion; but it is
not mentioned that he attempted to stop the persecutions directed
against the innocent Nonconformists, who were barbarously
punished, not because they rebelled, but because they dissented.
_Life of Ken, by a Layman_, vol. i. p. 298.
[678] 'From the conduct of the clergy in this and the former reign, it
is quite clear, that if the king had been a Protestant, of the
profession of the Church of England, or even a quiet, submissive
Catholic, without any zeal for his religion,--confining himself
solely to matters of state, and having a proper respect for
church property,--he might have plundered other Protestants at
his pleasure, and have trampled upon the liberties of his
country, without the danger of resistance.' _Wilson's Life of De
Foe_, vol. i. p. 136. Or, as Fox says, 'Thus, as long as James
contented himself with absolute power in civil matters, and did
not make use of his authority against the church, everything went
smooth and easy.' _Fox's Hist. of James II._, p. 165.
[679] Compare _Neal's Hist. of the Puritans_, vol. v. p. 58, with _Life
of James II._, edit. Clarke, vol. ii. p. 70; where it is well
said, that the clergy of the Church of England 'had preached
prerogative and the sovereign power to the highest pitch, while
it was favourable to them; but when they apprehended the least
danger from it, they cried out as soon as the shoe pinched,
though it was of their own putting on.' See also pp. 113, 164.
What their servility was to the crown, while they thought that
the crown was with them, may be estimated from the statement of
De Foe: 'I have heard it publicly preached, that if the king
commanded my head, and sent his messengers to fetch it, I was
bound to submit, and stand while it was cut off.' _Wilson's Life
of De Foe_, vol. i. p. 118.
[680] D'Oyly (_Life of Sancroft_, p. 164) says, 'On the whole, it is
supposed that not more than 200 out of the whole body of clergy,
estimated at 10,000, complied with the king's requisition.' 'Only
seven obeyed in the city of London, and not above 200 all England
over.' _Burnet's Own Time_, vol. iii. p. 218. On Sunday, 20th May
1688, Lord Clarendon writes: 'I was at St. James's church; in the
evening I had an account that the Declaration was read only in
four churches in the city and liberties.' _Clarendon Corresp._
vol. ii. pp. 172, 173. When this conduct became known, it was
observed that the church 'supported the crown only so long as she
dictated to it; and became rebellious at the moment when she was
forbidden to be intolerant.' _Mackintosh's Revolution of 1688_,
p. 255.
[681] The first advances were made when the Declaration of the king in
favour of 'liberty of conscience' was on the point of being
issued, and immediately after the proceedings at Oxford had shown
his determination to break down the monopoly of offices possessed
by the church. 'The clergy at the same time prayed and entreated
the dissenters to appear on their side, and stand by the
Establishment, making large promises of favour and brotherly
affection if ever they came into power.' _Neal's Hist. of the
Puritans_, vol. v. p. 29. See also, at pp. 58, 59, the
conciliating letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury after the
Declaration. 'Such,' says Neal, 'such was the language of the
church in distress!' Compare _Birch's Life of Tillotson_, p. 153;
_Ellis's Correspond._ vol. ii. p. 63; _Ellis's Orig. Letters_,
2nd series, vol. iv. p. 117; _Mackintosh's Revolution_, p. 286;
_Somers Tracts_, vol. ix. p. 132; _Macaulay's Hist. of England_,
vol. ii. pp. 218, 219.
[682] See the indignant language of De Foe _Wilson's Life of De Foe_,
vol. i. pp. 130, 131, 133, 134; and a _Letter from a Dissenter to
the Petitioning Bishops_, in _Somers Tracts_, vol. ix. pp. 117,
118. The writer says: 'Pray, my lords, let me ask you a question.
Suppose the king, instead of his Declaration, had issued out a
proclamation, commanding justices of the peace, constables,
informers, and all other persons, to be more rigorous, if
possible, against dissenters, and do their utmost to the perfect
quelling and destroying them; and had ordered this to be read in
your churches in the time of divine service,--would you have made
any scruple of that?'
Thus it was, that the proximate cause of that great revolution which
cost James his crown, was the publication by the king of an edict of
religious toleration, and the consequent indignation of the clergy at
seeing so audacious an act performed by a Christian prince. It is true,
that if other things had not conspired, this alone could never have
effected so great a change. But it was the immediate cause of it,
because it was the cause of the schism between the church and the
throne, and of the alliance between the church and the dissenters. This
is a fact never to be forgotten. We ought never to forget, that the
first and only time the Church of England has made war upon the crown,
was when the crown had declared its intention of tolerating, and in some
degree protecting, the rival religions of the country.[683] There is no
doubt that the Declaration which was then issued was illegal, and that
it was conceived in an insidious spirit. But declarations equally
illegal, equally insidious, and much more tyrannical, had on other
occasions been made by the sovereign, without exciting the anger of the
clergy.[684] These are things which it is good for us to ponder. These
are lessons of inestimable value for those to whom it is given, not,
indeed, to direct, but in some degree to modify, the march of public
opinion. As to the people in general, it is impossible for them to
exaggerate the obligations which they and all of us owe to the
Revolution of 1688. But let them take heed that superstition does not
mingle with their gratitude. Let them admire that majestic edifice of
national liberty, which stands alone in Europe like a beacon in the
midst of the waters; but let them not think that they owe anything to
men who, in contributing to its erection, sought the gratification of
their own selfishness, and the consolidation of that spiritual power
which by it they fondly hoped to secure.
[683] That this was the immediate cause, so far as the head of the
church-party was concerned, is unblushingly avowed by the
biographer and defender of the then Archbishop of Canterbury.
'The order published from the king in council, May 4th, 1688,
directing the archbishops and bishops to send to the clergy in
their respective dioceses the Declaration for Liberty of
Conscience, to be publicly read in all the churches of the
kingdom, made it impossible for the Archbishop of Canterbury to
abstain any longer from engaging in an open and declared
opposition to the counsels under which the king was now unhappily
acting.' _D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft_, p. 151.
[684] Some writers have attempted to defend the clergy, on the ground
that they thought it illegal to publish a declaration of this
kind. But such a defence is incompatible with their doctrine of
passive obedience; and besides this, it was contradicted by
precedents and decisions of their own. Jeremy Taylor, in his
_Ductor Dubitantium_, their great work of authority, asserts that
'the unlawful proclamations and edicts of a true prince may be
published by the clergy in their several charges.' _Heber's Life
of Taylor_, p. cclxxxvi. Heber adds: 'I wish I had not found this
in Taylor; and I thank Heaven that the principle was not adopted
by the English clergy in 1687.' But why was it not adopted in
1687? Simply because in 1687 the king attacked the monopoly
enjoyed by the clergy; and therefore the clergy forgot their
principle, that they might smite their enemy. And what makes the
motives of this change still more palpable is, that as late as
1681, the Archbishop of Canterbury caused the clergy to read a
Declaration issued by Charles II.; and that in a revised copy of
the Liturgy he had also added to the rubric to the same effect.
See _Neal's Hist. of the Puritans_, vol. v. p. 56. Compare
_Calamy's Own Life_, vol. i. pp. 199, 200; _Mackintosh's
Revolution_, pp. 242, 243; _D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft_, p. 152;
_King's Life of Locke_, vol. i. p. 259; _Life of James II._,
edit. Clarke, vol. ii. p. 156.
It is, indeed, difficult to conceive the full amount of the impetus
given to English civilization by the expulsion of the House of Stuart.
Among the most immediate results, may be mentioned the limits that were
set to the royal prerogative;[685] the important steps that were taken
towards religious toleration;[686] the remarkable and permanent
improvement in the administration of justice;[687] the final abolition
of a censorship over the press;[688] and, what has not excited
sufficient attention, the rapid growth, of those great monetary
interests by which, as we shall hereafter see, the prejudices of the
superstitious classes have in no small degree been counterbalanced.[689]
These are the main characteristics of the reign of William III.; a reign
often aspersed, and little understood,[690] but of which it may be truly
said, that, taking its difficulties into due consideration, it is the
most successful and the most splendid recorded in the history of any
country. But these topics rather belong to the subsequent volumes of
this work; and at present we are only concerned in tracing the effects
of the Revolution upon that ecclesiastical power by which it was
immediately brought about.
[685] They are summed up in a popular pamphlet ascribed to Lord Somers,
and printed in _Somers Tracts_, vol. x. pp. 263, 264. The
diminished respect felt for the crown after 1688 is judiciously
noticed in _Mahon's Hist. of England_, vol. i. p. 9.
[686] The Toleration Act was passed in 1689. A copy of it is given by
the historians of the dissenters, who call it their Magna Charta.
See _Bogue and Bennett's History of the Dissenters_, vol. i. pp.
187-198. The historian of the Catholics equally allows that the
reign of William III. is 'the era from which their enjoyment of
religious toleration may be dated.' _Butler's Memoirs of the
Catholics_, vol. iii. pp. 122, 139. This is said by Mr. Butler in
regard, not to the Protestant dissenters, but to the Catholics;
so that we have the admission of both parties as to the
importance of this epoch. Even the shameful act forced upon
William in 1700 was, as Mr. Hallam truly says, evaded in its
worst provisions. _Const. Hist._ vol. ii. pp. 332, 333.
[687] _Campbell's Chancellors_, vol. iv. pp. 102, 355, and his
_Chief-Justices_, vol. ii. pp. 95, 116, 118, 136, 142, 143. See
also _Barrington's Observations on the Statutes_, pp. 23, 102,
558; and even _Alison's Hist. of Europe_, vol. i. p. 236, vol.
ix. p. 243; an unwary concession from such an enemy to popular
liberty.
[688] This was effected before the end of the seventeenth century. See
_Campbell's Chancellors_, vol. iv. pp. 121, 122. Compare Lord
Camden on Literary Property, in _Parl. Hist._ vol. xvii. p. 994;
_Hunt's History of Newspapers_, vol. i. pp. 161, 162; _Somers
Tracts_, vol. xiii. p. 555; and a more detailed account in
_Macaulay's Hist. of England_, vol. iv. pp. 348 seq. 540 seq.;
though Mr. Macaulay in ascribing, p. 353, so much to the
influence of Blount, has not, I think, sufficiently dwelt on the
operation of larger and more general causes.
[689] Mr. Cooke (_Hist. of Party_, vol. ii. pp. 5, 148) notices this
remarkable rise of the monied classes early in the eighteenth
century; but he merely observes, that the consequence was to
strengthen the Whig party. Though this is undoubtedly true, the
ultimate results, as I shall hereafter point out, were far more
important than any political or even economical consequences. It
was not till 1694 that the Bank of England was established; and
this great institution at first met with the warmest opposition
from the admirers of old times, who thought it must be useless
because their ancestors did without it. See the curious details
in _Sinclair's Hist. of the Revenue_, vol. iii. pp. 6-9; and on
the connexion between it and the Whigs, see _Macaulay's Hist. of
England_, vol. iv. p. 502. There is a short account of its origin
and progress in _Smith's Wealth of Nations_, book ii. chap. ii.
p. 130.
[690] Frequently misunderstood, even by those who praise it. Thus, for
instance, a living writer informs us that, 'great as have been
the obligations which England owes, in many different views, to
the Revolution, it is beyond all question the greatest, that it
brought in a sovereign instructed in the art of overcoming the
ignorant impatience of taxation which is the invariable
characteristic of free communities; and thus gave it a government
capable of turning to the best account the activity and energy of
its inhabitants, at the same time that it had the means given it
of maintaining their independence.' _Alison's Hist. of Europe_,
vol. vii. p. 5. This, I should suppose, is the most eccentric
eulogy ever passed on William III.
Scarcely had the clergy succeeded in expelling James, when the greater
number of them repented of their own act.[691] Indeed, even before he
was driven from the country, several things had occurred to make them
doubt the policy of the course they were pursuing. During the last few
weeks that he was allowed to reign, he had shown symptoms of increasing
respect for the English hierarchy. The archbishopric of York had so long
been vacant, as to cause a belief that it was the intention of the crown
either to appoint to it a Catholic, or else to seize its revenues.[692]
But James, to the delight of the church, now filled up this important
office by nominating Lamplugh, who was well known to be a stanch
churchman and a zealous defender of episcopal privileges.[693] Just
before this, the king also rescinded the order by which the Bishop of
London had been suspended from the exercise of his functions.[694] To
the bishops in general he made great promises of future favour;[695]
some of them, it was said, were to be called to his privy council; and,
in the meantime, he cancelled that ecclesiastical commission which, by
limiting their power, had excited their anger.[696] Besides this, there
occurred some other circumstances which the clergy now had to consider.
It was rumoured, and it was generally believed, that William was no
great admirer of ecclesiastical establishments; and that, being a friend
to toleration, he was more likely to diminish the power than increase
the privileges of the English hierarchy.[697] It was also known that he
favoured the Presbyterians, whom the Church not unreasonably regarded as
her bitterest enemies.[698] And when, in addition to all this, William,
on mere grounds of expediency, actually abolished episcopacy in
Scotland, it became evident that, by thus repudiating the doctrine of
divine right, he had directed a great blow against those opinions on
which, in England, ecclesiastical authority was based.[699]
[691] On their sudden repentance, and on the causes of it, see _Neal's
Hist. of the Puritans_, vol. v. p. 71.
[692] _Mackintosh's Revolution of 1688_, pp. 81, 191. After the death of
Archbishop Dolben, 'the see was kept vacant for more than two
years,' and Cartwright hoped to obtain it. See _Cartwright's
Diary_, by Hunter, 4to, 1843, p. 45. In the same way, we find
from a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury (_Clarendon
Corresp._ vol. i. p. 409) that in May 1686 uneasiness was felt
because the Irish bishoprics were not filled up. Compare
_Burnet_, vol. iii. p. 103. Carwithen (_Hist. of the Ch. of
England_, vol. ii. p. 492) says, that James had intended to raise
the Jesuit Petre to the archbishopric.
[693] Lamplugh was translated from the bishopric of Exeter to the
archbishopric of York in November 1688. See the contemporary
account in the _Ellis Correspondence_, vol. ii. p. 303, and
_Ellis's Original Letters_, second series, vol. iv. p. 151. He
was a most orthodox man; and not only hated the dissenters, but
showed his zeal by persecuting them. _Wilson's Life of De Foe_,
vol. i. pp. 94, 95. Compare an anecdote of him in _Baxter's Life
of Himself_, folio, 1696, part iii. pp. 178, 179.
[694] In a letter, dated London, 29th September 1688 (_Ellis_,
_Correspondence_, vol. ii. p. 224, and _Ellis's Orig. Letters_,
second series, vol. iv. p. 128), it is stated, that the Bishop of
London's 'suspension is taken off.' See also _Somers Tracts_,
vol. ix. p. 215. This is the more observable, because, according
to Johnstone, there was an intention, in December 1687, of
depriving him. _Mackintosh's Revolution_, pp. 211, 212.
[695] This disposition on the part of the king again to favour the
bishops and the church became a matter of common remark in
September 1688. See _Ellis Correspond._ vol. ii. pp. 201, 202,
209, 219, 224, 225, 226, 227; _Clarendon Correspond._ vol. ii.
pp. 188, 192. Sir John Reresby, who was then in London, writes,
in October 1688, that James 'begins again to court the Church of
England.' _Reresby's Memoirs_, p. 357. Indeed, the difficulties
of James were now becoming so great, that he had hardly any
choice.
[696] _Ellis Correspond._ vol. ii. p. 211; _Life of James II._, edit.
Clarke, vol. ii. p. 189.
[697] In November 1687, it was said that he wished the dissenters to
have 'entire liberty for the full exercise of their religion,'
and to be freed 'from the severity of the penal laws.' _Somers
Tracts_, vol. ix. p. 184. This is the earliest distinct notice I
have seen of William's desire to deprive the church of the power
of punishing nonconformists; but after he arrived in England his
intentions became obvious. In January 1688-9 the friends of the
church complained 'that the countenance he gave the dissenters
gave too much cause of jealousy to the Church of England.'
_Clarendon Correspond._ vol. ii. p. 238. Compare _Neal's Hist. of
the Puritans_, vol. v. p. 81; _Bogue and Bennett's Hist. of the
Dissenters_, vol. ii. p. 318; _Birch's Life of Tillotson_, pp.
156, 157; _Somers Tracts_, vol. x. p. 341, vol. xi. p. 108.
Burnet, in his summary of the character of William, observes
that, 'his indifference as to the forms of church-government, and
his being zealous for toleration, together with his cold
behaviour towards the clergy, gave them generally very ill
impressions of him.' _Own Time_, vol. iv. p. 550. At p. 192 the
bishop says, 'He took no notice of the clergy, and seemed to have
little concern in the matters of the church or of religion.'
[698] Sir John Reresby, who was an attentive observer of what was going
on, says, 'The prince, upon his arrival, seemed more inclined to
the Presbyterians than to the members of the church; which
startled the clergy.' _Reresby's Memoirs_, p. 375: see also pp.
399, 405: 'the church-people hated the Dutch, and had rather turn
Papists than receive the Presbyterians among them.' Compare
_Evelyn's Diary_, vol. iii. p. 281: 'the Presbyterians, our new
governors.'
[699] Burnet (_Own Time_, vol. iv. p. 50) says of the clergy in 1689:
'The king was suspected by them, by reason of the favour showed
to dissenters; but chiefly for his abolishing episcopacy in
Scotland, and his consenting to the setting up presbytery there.'
On this great change, compare _Bogue and Bennett's History of
Dissenters_, vol. ii. pp. 379-384; _Barry's Hist. of the Orkney
Islands_, p. 257; _Neal's Hist. of the Puritans_, vol. v. pp. 85,
86: and on the indignation felt by the Anglican clergy at the
abolition of episcopacy in Scotland, see a contemporary pamphlet
in _Somers Tracts_, vol. ix. pp. 510, 516, where fears are
expressed lest William should effect a similar measure in
England. The writer very fairly observes, p. 522, 'For if we give
up the _jus divinum_ of episcopacy in Scotland, we must yield it
also as to England. And then we are wholly precarious.' See also
vol. x. pp. 341, 503; _Lathbury's Hist. of Convocation_, pp. 277,
278; and _Macpherson's Original Papers_, vol. i. p. 509.
While these things were agitating the public mind, the eyes of men were
naturally turned upon the bishops, who, though they had lost much of
their former power, were still respected by a large majority of the
people as the guardians of the national religion. But at this critical
moment they were so blinded, either by their ambition or by their
prejudices, that they adopted a course which of all others was the most
injurious to their reputation. They made a sudden attempt to reverse
that political movement of which they were themselves the principal
originators. Their conduct on this occasion amply confirms that account
of their motives which I have already given. If, in aiding those
preliminary measures by which the Revolution was effected, they had been
moved by a desire of relieving the nation from despotism, they would
have eagerly welcomed that great man at whose approach the despot took
to flight. This is what the clergy would have done, if they had loved
their country better than they loved their order. But they pursued a
precisely opposite course; because they preferred the petty interests of
their own class to the welfare of the great body of the people, and
because they would rather that the country should be oppressed than that
the church should be humbled. Nearly the whole of the bishops and clergy
had, only a few weeks before, braved the anger of their sovereign sooner
than read in their churches an edict for religious toleration, and seven
of the most influential of the episcopal order had, in the same cause,
willingly submitted to the risk of a public trial before the ordinary
tribunals of the land. This bold course they professed to have adopted,
not because they disliked toleration, but because they hated tyranny.
And yet when William arrived in England, and when James stole away from
the kingdom like a thief in the night, this same ecclesiastical
profession pressed forward to reject that great man, who, without
striking a blow, had by his mere presence saved the country from the
slavery with which it was threatened. We shall not easily find in modern
history another instance of such gross inconsistency, or rather, let us
say, of such selfish and reckless ambition. For this change of plan, far
from being concealed, was so openly displayed, and the causes of it were
so obvious, that the scandal was laid bare before the whole country.
Within the space of a few weeks the apostasy was consummated. The first
in the field was the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, anxious to retain
his office, had promised to wait upon William. But when he saw the
direction things were likely to take, he withdrew his promise, and would
not recognize a prince who showed such indifference to the sacred
order.[700] Indeed, so great was his anger, that he sharply rebuked his
chaplain for presuming to pray for William and Mary, although they had
been proclaimed with the full consent of the nation, and although the
crown had been delivered to them by the solemn and deliberate act of a
public convention of the estates of the realm.[701] While such was the
conduct of the primate of England, his brethren were not wanting to him
in this great emergency of their common fate. The oath of allegiance was
refused not only by the Archbishop of Canterbury, but also by the Bishop
of Bath and Wells, by the Bishop of Chester, by the Bishop of
Chichester, by the Bishop of Ely, by the Bishop of Gloucester, by the
Bishop of Norwich, by the Bishop of Peterborough, and by the Bishop of
Worcester.[702] As to the inferior clergy, our information is less
precise; but it is said that about six hundred of them imitated their
superiors in declining to recognize for their king him whom the country
had elected.[703] The other members of this turbulent faction were
unwilling, by so bold a measure, to incur that deprivation of their
livings with which William would probably have visited them. They,
therefore, preferred a safer and more inglorious opposition, by which
they could embarrass the government without injuring themselves, and
could gain the reputation of orthodoxy without incurring the pains of
martyrdom.
[700] _Burnet's Own Time_, vol. iii. p. 340. Burnet, who had the best
means of information, says, 'Though he had once agreed to it, yet
would not come.' Lord Clarendon, in his _Diary_, 3rd January
1688-9, writes, that the archbishop expressed to him on that day
his determination neither to call on William nor even to send to
him (_Clarendon Correspond._ vol. ii. p. 240); and this
resolution appears to have been taken deliberately: 'he was
careful not to do it, for the reasons he formerly gave me.'
[701] See the account given by his chaplain Wharton, in _D'Oyly's Life
of Sancroft_, p. 259, where it is stated that the archbishop was
very irate ('vehementer excandescens'), and told him, 'that he
must thenceforward desist from offering prayers for the new king
and queen, or else from performing the duties of his chapel.' See
also _Birch's Life of Tillotson_, p. 144. Thus too the Bishop of
Norwich declared 'that he would not pray for King William and
Queen Mary.' _Clarendon Correspond._ vol. ii. p. 263. The same
spirit was universal among the high-church clergy; and when
public prayers were offered up for the king and queen, they were
called by the nonjurors 'the immoral prayers,' and this became a
technical and recognized expression. _Life of Ken, by a Layman_,
vol. ii. pp. 648, 650.
[702] _Lathbury's Hist. of the Nonjurors_, p. 45; _D'Oyly's Sancroft_,
p. 260.
[703] Nairne's Papers mention, in 1693, 'six hundred ministers who have
not taken the oaths.' _Macpherson's Orig. Papers_, vol. i. p. 459.
The effect which all this produced on the temper of the nation may be
easily imagined. The question was now narrowed to an issue which every
plain man could at once understand. On the one side, there was an
overwhelming majority of the clergy.[704] On the other side there was
all the intellect of England, and all her dearest interests. The mere
fact that such an opposition could exist without kindling a civil war,
showed how the growing intelligence of the people had weakened the
authority of the ecclesiastical profession. Besides this, the opposition
was not only futile, but it was also injurious to the class that made
it.[705] For it was now seen that the clergy only cared for the people
as long as the people cared for them. The violence with which these
angry men[706] set themselves against the interests of the nation
clearly proved the selfishness of that zeal against James, of which they
had formerly made so great a merit. They continued to hope for his
return, to intrigue for him, and in some instances to correspond with
him; although they well knew that his presence would cause a civil war,
and that he was so generally hated that he dared not show his face in
England unless protected by the troops of a foreign and hostile
power.[707]
[704] The only friends William possessed among the clergy were the
low-churchmen, as they were afterwards called; and it is supposed
that they formed barely a tenth of the entire body in 1689: 'We
should probably overrate their numerical strength, if we were to
estimate them at a tenth part of the priesthood.' _Macaulay's
Hist. of England_, vol. iii. p. 74.
[705] The earliest allusion I have seen to the injury the clergy were
inflicting on the church, by their conduct after the arrival of
William, is in _Evelyn's Diary_, vol. iii. p. 273,--a curious
passage, gently hinting at the 'wonder of many,' at the behaviour
of 'the Archbishop of Canterbury, and some of the rest.' With
Evelyn, who loved the church, this was an unpleasant subject; but
others were less scrupulous; and in parliament, in particular,
men did not refrain from expressing what must have been the
sentiments of every impartial observer. In the celebrated debate,
in January 1688-9, when the throne was declared vacant, Pollexfen
said: 'Some of the clergy are for one thing, some for another; I
think they scarce know what they would have.' _Parl. Hist._ vol.
v. p. 55. In February, Maynard, one of the most influential
members, indignantly said: 'I think the clergy are out of their
wits; and I believe, if the clergy should have their wills, few
or none of us should be here again.' _Ibid._ vol. v. p. 129. The
clergy were themselves bitterly sensible of the general
hostility; and one of them writes, in 1694: 'The people of
England, who were so excessively enamoured of us when the bishops
were in the tower, that they hardly forbore to worship us, are
now, I wish I could say but cool and very indifferent towards
us.' _Somers Tracts_, vol. ix. p. 525. The growing indignation
against the clergy, caused by their obvious desire to sacrifice
the country to the interests of the church, is strikingly
displayed in a letter from Sir Roland Gwyne, written in 1710, and
printed in _Macpherson's Orig. Papers_, vol. ii. p. 207.
[706] They are so called by Burnet: 'these angry men, that had raised
this flame in the church.' _Own Time_, vol. v. p. 17.
[707] Indeed, the high-church party, in their publications, distinctly
intimated, that if James were not recalled, he should be
reinstated by a foreign army. _Somers Tracts_, vol. x. pp. 377,
405, 457, 462. Compare _Mahon's Hist. of England_, vol. ii. p.
138. Burnet (_Own Time_, vol. iv. pp. 361, 362) says, they were
'confounded' when they heard of the peace of 1697; and Calamy
(_Life of Himself_, vol. ii. p. 322) makes the same remark on the
death of Louis XIV.: 'It very much puzzled the counsels of the
Jacobites, and spoiled their projects.'
But this was not the whole of the damage which, in those anxious times,
the church inflicted upon herself. When the bishops refused to take the
oaths to the new government, measures were adopted to remove them from
their sees; and William did not hesitate to eject by force of law the
Archbishop of Canterbury and five of his brethren.[708] The prelates,
smarting under the insult, were goaded into measures of unusual
activity. They loudly proclaimed that the powers of the church, which
had long been waning, were now extinct.[709] They denied the right of
the legislature to pass a law against them. They denied the right of the
sovereign to put that law into execution.[710] They not only continued
to give themselves the title of bishops, but they made arrangements to
perpetuate the schism which their own violence had created. The
Archbishop of Canterbury, as he insisted upon being called, made a
formal renunciation of his imaginary right into the hands of Lloyd,[711]
who still supposed himself to be Bishop of Norwich, although William had
recently expelled him from his see. The scheme of these turbulent
priests was then communicated to James, who willingly supported their
plan for establishing a permanent feud in the English church.[712] The
result of this conspiracy between the rebellious prelates and the
pretended king, was the appointment of a series of men who gave
themselves out as forming the real episcopacy, and who received the
homage of every one who preferred the claims of the church to the
authority of the state.[713] This mock succession of imaginary bishops
continued for more than a century;[714] and, by dividing the allegiance
of churchmen, lessened the power of the church.[715] In several
instances, the unseemly spectacle was exhibited of two bishops for the
same place; one nominated by the spiritual power, the other nominated by
the temporal power. Those who considered the church as superior to the
state, of course attached themselves to the spurious bishops; while the
appointments of William were acknowledged by that rapidly increasing
party, who preferred secular advantages to ecclesiastical theories.[716]
[708] _D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft_, p. 266; _Wordsworth's Eccl. Biog._
iv. p. 683.
[709] Sancroft, on his death-bed, in 1693, prayed for the 'poor
suffering church, which, by this revolution, is almost
destroyed.' _D'Oyly's Sancroft_, p. 311; and _Macpherson's
Original Papers_, vol. i. p. 280. See also _Remarks_, published
in 1693 (_Somers Tracts_, vol. x. p. 504) where it is said, that
William had, 'as far as possible he could, dissolved the true old
Church of England;' and that, 'in a moment of time, her face was
so altered, as scarce to be known again.'
[710] 'Ken, though deprived, never admitted in the secular power the
right of deprivation; and it is well known that he studiously
retained his title.' _Bowles's Life of Ken_, vol. ii. p. 225.
Thus, too, Lloyd, so late as 1703, signs himself, 'Wm. Nor.'
(_Life of Ken, by a Layman_, vol. ii. p. 720); though, having
been legally deprived, he was no more bishop of Norwich than he
was emperor of China. And Sancroft, in the last of his letters,
published by D'Oyly (_Life_, p. 303), signs 'W. C.'
[711] The strange document, by which he appointed Dr. Lloyd his
vicar-general, is printed in Latin, in _D'Oyly's Sancroft_, p.
295, and in English, in _Life of Ken, by a Layman_, vol. ii.
p. 640.
[712] _Lathbury's Hist. of the Nonjurors_, p. 96; _Life of Ken, by a
Layman_, vol. ii. pp. 641, 642.
[713] The struggle between James and William was essentially a struggle
between ecclesiastical interests and secular interests; and this
was seen as early as 1689, when, as we learn from Burnet, who was
much more a politician than a priest, 'the church was as the word
given out by the Jacobite party, under which they might more
safely shelter themselves,' _Own Time_, vol. iv. p. 57. See also,
on this identification of the Jacobites with the church, _Birch's
Life of Tillotson_, p. 222; and the argument of Dodwell, pp. 246,
247, in 1691. Dodwell justly observed, that the successors of the
deprived bishops were schismatical, in a spiritual point of view;
and that, 'if they should pretend to lay authority as sufficient,
they would overthrow the being of a church as a society.' The
bishops appointed by William were evidently intruders, according
to church principles; and as their intrusion could only be
justified according to lay principles, it followed that the
success of the intrusion was the triumph of lay principles over
church ones. Hence it is, that the fundamental idea of the
rebellion of 1688, is the elevation of the state above the
church; just as the fundamental idea of the rebellion of 1642, is
the elevation of the commons above the crown.
[714] According to Dr. D'Oyly (_Life of Sancroft_, p. 297), Dr. Gordon
'died in London, November 1779, and is supposed to have been the
last nonjuring bishop.' In _Short's Hist. of the Church of
England_, p. 583, Lond. 1847, it is also stated, that 'this
schism continued till 1779.' But Mr. Hallam (_Const. Hist._ vol.
ii. p. 404) has pointed out a passage in the _State Trials_,
which proves that another of the bishops, named Cartwright, was
still living at Shrewsbury in 1793; and Mr. Lathbury (_Hist. of
the Nonjurors_, Lond. 1845, p. 412) says, that he died in 1799.
[715] Calamy (_Own Life_, vol. i. pp. 328-330, vol. ii. pp. 338, 357,
358) gives an interesting account of these feuds within the
church, consequent upon the revolution. Indeed, their bitterness
was such, that it was necessary to coin names for the two
parties; and, between 1700 and 1702, we, for the first time, hear
the expressions, high-church and low-church. See _Burnet's Own
Time_, vol. iv. p. 447, vol. v. p. 70. Compare _Wilson's Life of
De Foe_, vol. ii. p. 26; _Parl. Hist._ vol. vi. pp. 162, 498. On
the difference between them, as it was understood in the reign of
Anne, see _Somers Tracts_, vol. xii. p. 532, and _Macpherson's
Orig. Papers_, vol. ii. p. 166. On the dawning schism in the
church, see the speech of Sir T. Littleton, in 1690, _Parl.
Hist._ vol. v. p. 593. Hence many complained that they could not
tell which was the real church. See curious evidence of this
perplexity in _Somers Tracts_, vol. ix. pp. 477-481.
[716] The alternative is fairly stated in a letter written in 1691
(_Life of Ken, by a Layman_, vol. ii. p. 599): 'If the deprived
bishop be the only lawful bishop, then the people and clergy of
his diocese are bound to own him, and no other; then all the
bishops who own the authority of a new archbishop, and live in
communion with him, are schismatics; and the clergy who live in
communion with schismatical bishops are schismatics themselves;
and the whole Church of England now established by law is
schismatical.'
Such were some of the events which, at the end of the seventeenth
century, widened the breach that had long existed between the interests
of the nation and the interests of the clergy.[717] There was also
another circumstance which considerably increased this alienation. Many
of the English clergy, though they retained their affection for James,
did not choose to brave the anger of the government, or risk the loss of
their livings. To avoid this, and to reconcile their conscience with
their interest, they availed themselves of a supposed distinction
between a king by right and a king in possession.[718] The consequence
was, that while with their lips they took an oath of allegiance to
William, they in their hearts paid homage to James; and, while they
prayed for one king in their churches, they were bound to pray for
another in their closets.[719] By this wretched subterfuge, a large
body of the clergy were at once turned into concealed rebels; and we
have it on the authority of a contemporary bishop, that the
prevarication of which these men were notoriously guilty was a still
further aid to that scepticism, the progress of which he bitterly
deplores.[720]
[717] Lord Mahon (_Hist. of England_, vol. ii. p. 245) notices, what he
terms, the 'unnatural alienation between the church and state,'
consequent upon the Revolution of 1688: and on the diminished
power of the church caused by the same event, see _Phillimore's
Mem. of Lyttleton_, vol. i. p. 352.
[718] The old absurdity of _de facto_ and _de jure_; as if any man could
retain a right to a throne which the people would not allow him
to occupy!
[719] In 1715, Leslie, by far the ablest of them, thus states their
position: 'You are now driven to this dilemma,--swear, or swear
not; if you swear, you kill the soul; and if you swear not, you
kill the body, in the loss of your bread.' _Somers Tracts_, vol.
xiii. p. 686. The result of the dilemma was what might have been
expected; and a high-church writer, in the reign of William III.,
boasts (_Somers Tracts_, vol. x. p. 344) that the oaths taken by
the clergy were no protection to the government: 'not that the
government receives any security from oaths.' Whiston, too, says
in his _Memoirs_, p. 30: 'Yet do I too well remember that the far
greatest part of those of the university and clergy that then
took the oaths to the government, seemed to me to take them with
a doubtful conscience, if not against its dictates.' This was in
1693; and, in 1710, we find: 'There are now circumstances to make
us believe that the Jacobite clergy have the like instructions to
take any oaths, to get possession of a pulpit for the service of
the cause, to bellow out the hereditary right, the pretended
title of the Pretender.' _Somers Tracts_, vol. xii. p. 641. A
knowledge of this fact, or, at all events, a belief of it, was
soon diffused; and, eight years later, the celebrated Lord.
Cowper, then lord chancellor, said, in the House of Lords, 'that
his majesty had also the best part of the landed, and all the
trading interest; _that as to the clergy, he would say
nothing--but that it was notorious that the majority of the
populace had been poisoned, and that the poison was not yet quite
expelled_.' _Parl. Hist._ vol. vii. p. 541; also given, but not
quite _verbatim_, in _Campbell's Chancellors_, vol. iv. p. 365.
[720] 'The prevarication of too many in so sacred a matter contributed
not a little to fortify the growing atheism of the present age.'
_Burnet's Own Time_, vol. iii. p. 381. See also, to the same
effect, vol. iv. pp. 176, 177; and a remarkable passage in
_Somers Tracts_, vol. xii. p. 573. I need hardly add, that it was
then usual to confuse scepticism with atheism; though the two
things are not only different, but incompatible. In regard to the
quibble respecting _de facto_ and _de jure_, and the use made of
it by the clergy, the reader should compare _Wilson's Mem. of De
Foe_, vol. i. pp. 171, 172; _Somers Tracts_, vol. ix. p. 531;
_Campbell's Chancellors_, vol. iv. p. 409; and a letter from the
Rev. Francis Jessop, written in 1717, in _Nichols's Lit.
Illustrations_, vol. iv. pp. 120-123.
As the eighteenth century advanced, the great movement of liberation
rapidly proceeded. One of the most important of the ecclesiastical
resources had formerly been Convocation; in which the clergy, by meeting
in a body, were able to discountenance in an imposing manner whatever
might be hostile to the church; and had, moreover, an opportunity, which
they sedulously employed, of devising schemes favourable to the
spiritual authority.[721] But, in the progress of the age, this weapon
also was taken from them. Within a very few years after the Revolution,
Convocation fell into general contempt;[722] and, in 1717, this
celebrated assembly was finally prorogued by an act of the crown, it
being justly considered that the country had no further occasion for its
services.[723] Since that period, this great council of the English
church has never been allowed to meet for the purpose of deliberating on
its own affairs, until a few years ago, when, by the connivance of a
feeble government, it was permitted to reassemble. So marked, however,
has been the change in the temper of the nation, that this once
formidable body does not now retain even a semblance of its ancient
influence; its resolutions are no longer feared, its discussions are no
longer studied; and the business of the country continues to be
conducted without regard to those interests which, only a few
generations ago, were considered by every statesman to be of supreme
importance.[724]
[721] Among which must be particularly mentioned the practice of
censuring all books that encouraged free inquiry. In this
respect, the clergy were extremely mischievous. See _Lathbury's
Hist. of Convocation_, pp. 124, 286, 338, 351; and _Wilson's Life
of De Foe_, vol. ii. p. 170.
[722] In 1704, Burnet (_Own Time_, vol. v. p. 138) says of Convocation,
'but little opposition was made to them, as very little regard
was had to them.' In 1700, there was a squabble between the upper
and lower house of Convocation for Canterbury; which, no doubt,
aided these feelings. See _Life of Archbishop Sharp_, edited by
Newcome, vol. i. p. 348, where this wretched feud is related with
great gravity.
[723] Charles Butler (_Reminiscences_, vol. ii. p. 95) says, that the
final prorogation was in 1720; but, according to all the other
authorities I have met with, it was in 1717. See _Hallam's Const.
Hist._ vol. ii. p. 395; _Lathbury's Hist. of Convocation_, p.
385; _Mahon's Hist. of England_, vol. i. p. 302; _Monk's Life of
Bentley_, vol. ii. p. 350.
[724] A letter, written by the Rev. Thomas Clayton in 1727, is worth
reading, as illustrating the feelings of the clergy on this
subject. He asserts, that one of the causes of the obvious
degeneracy of the age is, that, owing to Convocation not being
allowed to meet, 'bold and impious books appear barefaced to the
world without any public censure.' See this letter in _Nichols's
Illustrations of the Eighteenth Century_, vol. iv. pp. 414-416;
and compare with it, _Letters between Warburton and Hurd_, pp.
310-312.
Indeed, immediately after the Revolution, the tendency of things became
too obvious to be mistaken, even by the most superficial observers. The
ablest men in the country no longer flocked into the church, but
preferred those secular professions in which ability was more likely to
be rewarded.[725] At the same time, and as a natural part of the great
movement, the clergy saw all the offices of power and emolument, which
they had been used to hold, gradually falling out of their hands. Not
only in the dark ages, but even so late as the fifteenth century, they
were still strong enough to monopolize the most honourable and lucrative
posts in the empire.[726] In the sixteenth century, the tide began to
turn against them, and advanced with such steadiness, that, since the
seventeenth century, there has been no instance of any ecclesiastic
being made lord chancellor;[727] and, since the beginning of the
eighteenth century, there has been no instance of one receiving any
diplomatic appointment, or, indeed, holding any important office in the
state.[728] Nor has this increasing ascendency of laymen been confined
to the executive government. On the contrary, we find in both Houses of
Parliament the same principle at work. In the early and barbarous
periods of our history, one half of the House of Lords consisted of
temporal peers; the other half of spiritual ones.[729] By the beginning
of the eighteenth century, the spiritual peers, instead of forming
one-half of the upper house, had dwindled away to one-eighth;[730] and,
in the middle of the nineteenth century, they have still further shrunk
to one-fourteenth:[731] thus supplying a striking numerical instance of
that diminution of ecclesiastical power which is an essential requisite
of modern civilization. Precisely in the same way, more than fifty
years have elapsed since any clergyman has been able to take his seat as
a representative of the people; the House of Commons having, in 1801,
formally closed their doors against a profession which, in the olden
time, would have been gladly admitted, even by the proudest and most
exclusive assembly.[732] In the House of Lords, the bishops still retain
their seats; but their precarious tenure is everywhere remarked, and the
progress of public opinion is constantly pointing to a period, which
cannot now be far distant, when the Peers will imitate the example set
by the Commons, and will induce the legislature to relieve the upper
house of its spiritual members; since they, by their habits, their
tastes, and their traditions, are evidently unfitted for the profane
exigencies of political life.[733]
[725] On the decline of ability in ecclesiastical literature, see note
38 in this chapter. In 1685, a complaint was made that secular
professions were becoming more sought after than ecclesiastical
ones. See _England's Wants_, sec. lvi. in _Somers Tracts_, vol.
ix. p. 231, where the writer mournfully states, that in his time
'physic and law, professions ever acknowledged in all nations to
be inferior to divinity, are generally embraced by gentlemen, and
sometimes by persons nobly descended, and _preferred much above
the divine's profession_.' This preference was, of course, most
displayed by young men of intellect; and a large amount of energy
being thus drawn off from the church, gave rise to that decay of
spirit and of general power which has been already noticed; and
which is also indicated by Coleridge, in his remarks on the
'apologising theology' which succeeded the Revolution.
_Coleridge's Lit. Remains_, vol. iii. pp. 51, 52, 116, 117, 119.
Compare _Stephen's Essays on Ecclesiast. Biog._ 2d edit. 1850,
vol. ii. p. 66, on 'this depression of theology;' and _Hare's
Mission of the Comforter_, 1850, p. 264, on the 'intellectually
feebler age.' Evelyn, in 1691, laments the diminished energy then
beginning to be observed among 'young preachers.' _Evelyn's
Diary_, vol. iii. p. 309; and for another notice, in 1696, of
this 'dead and lifeless way of preaching,' see _Life of
Cudworth_, p. 35, in vol. i. of _Cudworth's Intellect Syst._
[726] Sharon Turner, describing the state of things in England in the
fifteenth century, says, 'Clergymen were secretaries of
government, the privy seals, cabinet councillors, treasurers of
the crown, ambassadors, commissioners to open parliament, and to
Scotland; presidents of the king's council, supervisors of the
royal works, chancellors, keepers of the records, the masters of
the rolls, and even the physicians, both to the king and to the
duke of Gloucester, during the reign of Henry VI. and
afterwards.' _Turner's Hist. of England_, vol. vi. p. 132. On
their enormous wealth, see _Eccleston's English Antiquities_, p.
146: 'In the early part of the fourteenth century, it is
calculated that very nearly one-half of the soil of the kingdom
was in the hands of the clergy.'
[727] In 1625, Williams bishop of Lincoln was dismissed from his office
of lord-keeper; and Lord Campbell observes (_Lives of the
Chancellors_, vol. ii. p. 492): 'This is the last time that an
ecclesiastic has held the great seal of England; and,
notwithstanding the admiration in some quarters of mediæval
usages, I presume the experiment is not likely to be soon
repeated.'
[728] Monk (_Life of Bentley_, vol. i. p. 222) says, that Dr. John
Robinson, bishop of Bristol, was 'lord privy seal, and
plenipotentiary at the treaty of Utrecht; and is the last
ecclesiastic in England who has held any of the high offices of
state.' A high-church writer, in 1712, complains of the efforts
that were being made to 'thrust the churchmen out of their places
of power in the government.' _Somers Tracts_, vol. xiii. p. 211.
[729] In and after the reign of Henry III. 'the number of archbishops,
bishops, abbots, priors, and ecclesiastical persons was for the
most part equal to, and very often far exceeded, the number of
the temporal lords and barons.' _Parry's Parliaments and Councils
of England_, London, 1839, p. xvii. Of this Mr. Parry gives
several instances; the most remarkable of which is, that 'in 49
Henry III., 120 prelates, and only 23 temporal lords, were
summoned.' This, of course, was an extreme case.
[730] See an analysis of the House of Lords, in 1713, in _Mahon's Hist.
of England_, vol. i. pp. 43-45; from which it appears that the
total was 207, of whom 26 were spiritual. This includes the
Catholics.
[731] By the returns in Dod for 1854, I find that the House of Lords
contains 436 members, of whom 30 belong to the episcopal bench.
[732] For different accounts, and of course different views, of this
final expulsion of the clergy from the House of Commons, see
_Pellew's Life of Sidmouth_, vol. i. pp. 419, 420; _Stephens's
Mem. of Tooke_, vol. ii. pp. 247-260; _Holland's Mem. of the Whig
Party_, vol. i. pp. 178-180; _Campbell's Chancellors_, vol. vii.
p. 148; _Twiss's Life of Eldon_, vol. i. p. 263; _Adolphus's
Hist. of George III._, vol. vii. p. 487.
[733] That the banishment of the clergy from the lower house was the
natural prelude to the banishment of the bishops from the upper,
was hinted at the time, and with regret, by a very keen observer.
In the discussion 'on the Bill to prevent Persons in Holy Orders
from sitting in the House of Commons,' Lord Thurlow 'mentioned
the tenure of the bishops at this time, and said, if the bill
went to disfranchise the lower orders of the clergy, it might go
the length of _striking at the right of the reverend bench
opposite to seats in that house_; though he knew it had been held
that the reverend prelates sat, in the right of their baronies,
as temporal peers.' _Parl. Hist._ vol. xxxv. p. 1542.
While the fabric of superstition was thus tottering from internal decay,
and while that ecclesiastical authority which had formerly played so
great a part was gradually yielding to the advance of knowledge, there
suddenly occurred an event which, though it might naturally have been
expected, evidently took by surprise even those whom it most interested.
I allude, of course, to that great religious revolution, which was a
fitting supplement to the political revolution which preceded it. The
dissenters, who were strengthened by the expulsion of James, had by no
means forgotten those cruel punishments which the Church of England, in
the days of her power, had constantly inflicted upon them; and they felt
that the moment had now come when they could assume towards her a bolder
front than that on which they had hitherto ventured.[734] Besides this,
they had in the mean time received fresh causes of provocation. After
the death of our great king William III., the throne was occupied by a
foolish and ignorant woman, whose love for the clergy would, in a more
superstitious age, have led to dangerous results.[735] Even as it was, a
temporary reaction took place, and during her reign the church was
treated with a deference which William had disdained to show.[736] The
natural consequence immediately followed. New measures of persecution
were devised, and fresh laws were passed against those Protestants who
did not conform to the doctrines and discipline of the English
church.[737] But after the death of Anne the dissenters quickly rallied;
their hopes revived,[738] their numbers continued to increase, and in
spite of the opposition of the clergy, the laws against them were
repealed.[739] As by these means they were placed more on a level with
their opponents, and as their temper was soured by the injuries they had
recently received, it was clear that a great struggle between the two
parties was inevitable.[740] For by this time the protracted tyranny of
the English clergy had totally destroyed those feelings of respect
which, even in the midst of hostility, often linger in the mind; and by
the influence of which, if they had still existed, the contest might
perhaps have been averted. But such motives of restraint were now
despised; and the dissenters, exasperated by incessant persecution,[741]
determined to avail themselves of the declining power of the church.
They had resisted her when she was strong; it was hardly to be expected
that they would spare her when she was feeble. Under two of the most
remarkable men of the eighteenth century, Whitefield, the first of
theological orators,[742] and Wesley, the first of theological
statesmen,[743] there was organized a great system of religion, which
bore the same relation to the Church of England that the Church of
England bore to the Church of Rome. Thus, after an interval of two
hundred years, a second spiritual Reformation was effected in our
country. In the eighteenth century the Wesleyans were to the Bishops
what, in the sixteenth century, the Reformers were to the Popes.[744] It
is indeed true, that the dissenters from the Church of England, unlike
the dissenters from the Church of Rome, soon lost that intellectual
vigour for which at first they were remarkable. Since the death of their
great leaders, they have not produced one man of original genius; and
since the time of Adam Clarke, they have not had among them even a
single scholar who has enjoyed an European reputation. This mental
penury is perhaps owing, not to any circumstances peculiar to their
sect, but merely to that general decline of the theological spirit, by
which their adversaries have been weakened as well as themselves.[745]
Be this as it may, it is at all events certain, that the injury they
have inflicted on the English church is far greater than is generally
supposed, and, I am inclined to think, is hardly inferior to that which
in the sixteenth century Protestantism inflicted upon Popery. Setting
aside the actual loss in the number of its members,[746] there can be
no doubt that the mere formation of a Protestant faction, unopposed by
the government, was a dangerous precedent; and we know from contemporary
history that it was so considered by those who were most interested in
the result.[747] Besides this, the Wesleyans displayed an organization
so superior to that of their predecessors the Puritans, that they soon
became a centre round which the enemies of the church could conveniently
rally. And, what is perhaps still more important, the order, regularity,
and publicity, by which their proceedings have usually been marked,
distinguished them from other sects; and by raising them as it were to
the dignity of a rival establishment, have encouraged the diminution of
that exclusive and superstitious respect which was once paid to the
Anglican hierarchy.[748]
[734] It is impossible now to ascertain the full extent to which the
Church of England, in the seventeenth century, persecuted the
dissenters; but Jeremy White is said to have had a list of sixty
thousand of these sufferers between 1660 and 1688, of whom no
less than five thousand died in prison. _Bogue and Bennett's
Hist. of the Dissenters_, vol. i. p. 108. On the cruel spirit
which the clergy displayed in the reign of Charles II. compare
_Harris's Lives of the Stuarts_, vol. v. p. 106; _Orme's Life of
Owen_, p. 344; _Somers Tracts_, vol. xii. p. 534. Indeed, Harwood
frankly said in the House of Commons, in 1672, 'Our aim is to
bring all dissenting men into the Protestant church, and he that
is not willing to come into the church should not have ease.'
_Parl. Hist._ vol. iv. p. 530. On the zeal with which this
principle was carried out, see an account, written in 1671, in
_Somers Tracts_, vol. vii. pp. 586-615; and the statement of De
Foe, in _Wilson's Life of De Foe_, vol. ii. pp. 443-444.
[735] Besides the correspondence which the Duchess of Marlborough
preserved for the instruction of posterity, we have some
materials for estimating the abilities of Anne in the letters
published in _Dalrymple's Memoirs_. In one of them Anne writes,
soon after the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience was issued,
'It is a melancholy prospect that all we of the Church of England
have. All the sectaries may now do what they please. Every one
has the free exercise of their religion, on purpose, no doubt, to
ruin us, which I think to all impartial judges is very plain.'
_Dalrymple's Memoirs_, appendix to book v. vol. ii. p. 173.
[736] See a notable passage in _Somers Tracts_, vol. xii. p. 558, which
should be compared with Wilson's _Life of De Foe_, vol. iii.
p. 372.
[737] _Bogue and Bennett's History of the Dissenters_, vol. i.
pp. 228-230, 237, 260-277; and _Hallam's Const. Hist._ vol. ii.
pp. 396, 397. Mr. Hallam says, 'It is impossible to doubt for an
instant, that if the queen's life had preserved the Tory
government for a few years, every vestige of the toleration would
have been effaced.' It appears from the _Vernon Correspond._ vol.
iii. p. 228, Lond. 1841, that soon after the accession of Anne,
there was a proposal 'to debar dissenters of their votes in
elections;' and we know from Burnet (_Own Time_, vol. v. pp. 108,
136, 137, 218) that the clergy would have been glad if Anne had
displayed even more zeal against them than she really did.
[738] _Bogue and Bennett's Hist. of the Dissenters_, vol. iii. p. 118.
In Ivimey's _History of the Baptists_, it is said that the death
of Anne was an 'answer to the dissenters' prayers.' _Southey's
Commonplace Book_, third series, p. 135; see also p. 147, on the
joy of the dissenters at the death of this troublesome woman.
[739] Two of the worst of them, 'the act against occasional conformity,
and that restraining education, were repealed in the session of
1719.' _Hallam's Const. Hist._ vol. ii. p. 398. The repeal of the
act against occasional conformity was strenuously opposed by the
archbishops of York and of Canterbury (_Bogue and Bennett's Hist.
of the Dissenters_, vol. iii. p. 132); but their opposition was
futile; and when the Bishop of London, in 1726, wished to strain
the Act of Toleration, he was prevented by Yorke, the
attorney-general. See the pithy reply of Yorke, in _Harris's Life
of Hardwicke_, vol. i. pp. 193, 194.