The peace of Ryswick, which put an end to the war between William and
Louis, and detached the latter from the cause of James, dispelled for
awhile the visions which had tantalized and disappointed the nonjuring
party; for the treaty, sanctioned by France, Spain, and the United
Provinces, recognized the constitution of England, and William as a
constitutional King. Some Clergymen, wearied by the bootless resistance
of eight long years, now came to terms, and swore allegiance to the
reigning Sovereign, adopting at last the principle which they had
denounced, that a settled Government, though illegitimate in its
origin, is binding in its authority.
[Sidenote: PEACE OF RYSWICK.]
Immense joy arose on this occasion; it prolonged itself during the
month of November. The anniversary of the landing at Torbay of course
set in motion peals of bells, lighted up candles in windows, kindled
bonfires in market-places, and evoked shouts of glee from assembled
multitudes. The 14th of November, the day of Williams return and
landing at Margate, became an additional season of joy. On the
16th, which turned out a bright morning, he entered his capital in
state, attended by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, with a measure of
the splendour which on past occasions brightened the City’s dark and
narrow streets; although some of the spectators of the sight noticed a
decline in the splendour of the pageantry.[300] The triumph of the day
was complete when the University of Oxford, to the unutterable chagrin
of the Nonjurors, struck its colours, and in an adulatory address did
homage to the hero. This tide of joy flowed into the following month.
The 2nd of December was held as a day of thanksgiving for the peace.
The King and Court attended Divine service in the Chapel at Whitehall,
where Burnet preached, or, as one who heard him says, “made a florid
panegyric,”[301] founded on the words, “Happy are thy men, and happy
are these thy servants, which stand continually before thee, and hear
thy wisdom. Blessed be the Lord thy God which delighted in thee to
set thee on his throne, to be king for the Lord thy God: because thy
God loved Israel to establish them for ever, therefore made he thee
king over them, to do judgment and justice.” The same day St. Paul’s
Cathedral was opened for Divine service, and William would have been
there, instead of being in his own Chapel, but for fear lest the
multitude, thronging the streets, should render his approach almost
impracticable. The Corporation of London appeared in their civic pomp;
Compton ascended his throne, just enriched by the carvings of Grinling
Gibbons; and he afterwards preached from the appropriate text, “I
was glad when they said unto me, Let us go up into the house of the
Lord.”[302]
[Sidenote: 1698.]
A new Parliament, of a decidedly High-Church stamp, assembled on
the 9th of December, amidst an atmosphere of hypocrisy and intrigue
rarely equalled. A sermon preached before the Commons by the Rector of
Sutton, in Surrey, upon government originating with the people, and
good government alone being the ordinance of God, gave vast offence
to the Tories, and occasioned the passing of a curious resolution,
that no one should preach before the House unless he was a Dean or a
D.D. A Committee of the Lower House formally complained of Dissenters
being made Justices of the Peace; whereas it turned out on inquiry
that not two of their number were placed on the roll, besides such
as had become occasional Conformists. Some zealots went so far as to
propose, that an address should be presented to the King, to remove
Burnet from the office of Preceptor to the young Duke of Gloucester;
but as this was too absurd a proposal to find much support, it had to
be withdrawn.[303] Under pretence of patriotism and economy, a strong
opposition party carried one measure for a reduction of the army, which
compelled William to part with his Dutch Guards, the sorest sacrifice
he ever made; and another for the recovery of Irish estates, bestowed
by the Monarch on his supporters, a proceeding which ended in the
aggrandizement of its inventors.
[Sidenote: PARLIAMENT.]
The peace of Ryswick had brought “a great swarm of priests”[304] to
England, who held up their heads with so much insolence, that some
foolish Protestants and some cunning politicians absurdly declared,
the articles of peace favoured Popery, and the King was a Papist in
disguise. Soon the new Parliament, stirred by a gust of wind which
threatened a “No Popery” tempest, set to work upon a Bill obliging
every Popish minor succeeding to an estate, immediately to take the
oath of allegiance, and, as soon as he attained his majority, to
submit to the Test Act,--otherwise his property would devolve on the
Protestant next of kin. The Bill also banished Popish priests, and
adjudged them to perpetual imprisonment in case they dared to return;
the reward for conviction being £100. The Bill is said to have been
partly a trick contrived by the Tories to perplex the Whigs, who prided
themselves on being the champions of Toleration; but when they saw
the Whigs supporting it, they indicated a desire to drop the measure.
With a view of provoking defeat, they introduced additionally severe
and unreasonable clauses; yet, contrary to their expectations, the
Lords, under the influence of an anti-Popish fever, accepted what came
up to them, and the Bill, unamended, not only passed the Upper House,
but received the Royal assent. Burnet supported it, and endeavoured
to defend himself against the charge of injustice and inconsistency.
“I had always thought,” he says, “that if a Government found any sect
in religion incompatible with its quiet and safety, it might, and
sometimes ought, to send away all of that sect, with as little hardship
as possible. It is certain that as all Papists must, at all times,
be ill subjects to a Protestant prince, so this is much more to be
apprehended when there is a pretended Popish heir in the case.” The
new law happily proved a nullity. Some of the terms were so vague, and
the provisions were so oppressive, that the “Act was not followed, nor
executed in any sort.”[305]
[Sidenote: 1699.]
Complaints of growing immorality had been repeatedly made;
proclamations to check it had been often issued; and on the 28th of
November, Parliament requested the publication of a new one. Upon this,
the Archbishop of Canterbury addressed a pastoral letter to each of his
Suffragans, requesting them to stir up the Clergy to a more zealous
discharge of their duties. The good effects of pastoral diligence had
been made apparent in London; now Ministers in general were exhorted
to imitate the admirable example. Let them by their consistent lives
recommend the doctrines which they preached. The family and the parish
were spheres of usefulness, to be filled up by the discharge of the
duties included in a Christian walk and conversation; persons in holy
orders ought to be pre-eminently holy. Enemies were seeking objections
against Christ’s religion, its friends therefore ought to be diligent
in its defence, acquainting themselves with the grounds on which it
rested, and the modes of sophistry by which it was assailed. Frequent
meetings of the Clergy for conference on religious matters might do
much good, especially if Churchwardens and others of the laity could
be brought to co-operate. Obstinate offenders should be subjected to
ecclesiastical censure, and the assistance of the magistrate should be
sought when it was likely to be effectual; people were not to shrink
from exposing crime and securing its punishment, through fear of being
denounced as informers. Finally, since education laid the firmest
basis for morality and religion, it became the parochial clergy to be
sedulous in the catechizing of children. In this way the Archbishop,
through the medium of Diocesans and their Clergy, endeavoured to
promote the interests of the Church.[306]
[Sidenote: CHURCH PREFERMENTS.]
The power vested in the Crown of nominating Bishops and other
dignitaries had been exercised during the life of Queen Mary very
much according to her discretion. William,--perhaps because he was a
foreigner, and also destitute of entire sympathy with Episcopalianism,
or because he was so engrossed with foreign affairs,--seems to have
been reluctant to take part in the bestowment of ecclesiastical
patronage. In the year 1700 he devolved its responsibilities, to a
large extent, upon the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the
Bishops of Salisbury, Worcester, Ely, and Norwich. Whilst he was in the
realm they were to signify to him their recommendation of such persons
as they thought fit for vacant preferments, which recommendation they
were to present through the Secretaries of State. If whilst he was
beyond the seas, any Bishoprics, Deaneries, or other specified clerical
offices in his gift, above the annual value of £140, should need
filling up, the Commissioners were to transmit the names of suitable
persons, respecting whom his pleasure would be made known under his
sign-manual. At the same time he delegated to them full power at once
to appoint to other preferments. Also, he declared, that neither when
he was abroad nor when he was at home, should either of his Secretaries
address him in reference to any benefices left to the recommendation or
disposal of the Commissioners, without first communicating with them,
also that no warrant should be presented for the Royal signature until
their recommendation had been obtained.[307]
[Sidenote: 1700.]
An affecting bereavement now occurred in the Royal family. William,
Duke of Gloucester, a son of Princess Anne and Prince George of
Denmark, was heir to the throne, and therefore in him centred the
hopes of the nation. He seems to have been a lively child, for in
1695, when only six years old, he ran to meet his uncle with a little
musket on his shoulder, and presented arms. “I am learning my drill,”
he cried, “that I may help you to beat the French.” Nothing could
have better pleased the veteran, who soon afterwards actually created
the boy Knight of the Garter. Military tastes continued to guide his
childish amusements, and he formed a regiment of lads, chiefly from
Kensington, who attended him at Campden House, the residence of his
mother, a quaint mansion burnt down a few years ago. The education of
the Prince early occupied the thoughts of William, who offered the
post of Governor to the Duke of Shrewsbury, now restored to the Royal
confidence.[308] Shrewsbury declined, and the office fell into the
hands of Marlborough. A story is told to the effect, that the King said
to the future hero of Blenheim, “Teach him to be what you are, and my
nephew cannot want accomplishments.” The still more important duties of
preceptor to the youth were entrusted to Burnet, as already indicated.
Windsor then being within the diocese of Salisbury, the Prince was to
live there during the summer months, when the Bishop reckoned he would
be in his diocese, and therefore in the way of his proper episcopal
duties; he satisfied himself with thinking, that all would be right
if the King allowed him ten weeks in the year for the other parts of
his diocese,--a circumstance which shows how in those days notions of
a Bishop’s office were different from what, happily, they are now.
“I took to my own province,” says the right reverend preceptor, “the
reading and explaining the Scriptures to him, the instructing him in
the principles of religion, and the rules of virtue, and the giving him
a view of history, geography, politics, and government. I resolved also
to look very exactly to all the masters that were appointed to teach
him other things.”[309]
[Sidenote: DUKE OF GLOUCESTER.]
[Sidenote: 1700.]
But a sad fatality brooded over all the offspring of poor Anne. After a
few days’ attack of fever, the young Duke died on the 30th of July.
He was buried in Westminster Abbey, and recently, upon the family vault
being opened, amongst the ten small coffins of the children of James
II., and the eighteen small coffins of the children of his daughter
Anne, lay the coffin of the youthful William, resting in remarkable
juxtaposition upon that of Elizabeth of Bohemia.[310] Thus one of an
unfortunate race, who never attained the crown he inherited, mingled
his dust with that of a great aunt, who soon lost the crown she had
prompted her husband too eagerly to seize. As the nation unaffectedly
mourned the death of the youthful Duke, a gentleman,[311] living at
Holland House, a friend of Atterbury’s, lamented the removal of his
Royal neighbour in the following lines, which afford a specimen of the
affected elegiac strains popular at the period:--
“So by the course of the revolving spheres,
When’er a new discover’d star appears,
Astronomers with pleasure and amaze,
Upon the infant luminary gaze.
They find their heaven’s enlarged, and wait from thence,
Some blest, some more than common influence;
But suddenly, alas! the fleeting light
Retiring, leaves their hopes involved in endless night.”
The Duke of Gloucester was the last Protestant heir to the Crown
recognized in the Act of Settlement. His death therefore exposed the
Royal succession to new perils, revived the hopes of the Jacobites, and
created anxiety in the minds of William and his Ministers. The King at
the time had left England nearly a month; and as, amidst the gardens
of his retreat at Loo, he saw the shortening of the summer days, he
had pondered future contingencies, and laid plans for preserving the
work which he had wrought. When, in the following February, 1701, he,
bearing evident signs of increasing frailty, met Parliament, he told
the Houses that the loss just sustained made it necessary there should
be a further provision for a Protestant succession; adding, that the
happiness of the nation, and the security of religion, seemed to depend
so much upon this, that he could not doubt it would meet with general
concurrence. The addresses echoed the same sentiment, and in March the
Bill of Succession came under Parliamentary debate. It determined that
the Princess Sophia, Duchess-Dowager of Hanover, or her heirs, should
succeed upon failure of issue to William and Anne; and it laid down
the principle that whosoever wore the Crown should commune with the
Church of England, as by law established. Other important resolutions,
which it does not come within my province to notice, were incorporated
in the Bill; and these gave rise to fierce discussions between the two
great political parties, who, throughout the whole of this reign, were
teasing William out of his life, provoking the phlegmatic Dutchman to
exclaim, that “all the difference he knew between the two parties was,
that the Tories would cut his throat in the morning, and the Whigs
in the afternoon.”[312] The Act of Settlement at length passed, and
received the Royal assent.
[Sidenote: THE SUCCESSION.]
It is curious to observe with respect to this Act, that Sophia, who was
made the protectress of the Reformed faith, and who was to supersede
the Stuarts on the throne, was neither a zealous Protestant nor a
foe to the exiled family. For when asked what was the religion of
her blooming daughter, at the time just thirteen years of age, she
replied she had none as yet; “we are waiting to know what prince she
is to marry, and whenever that point is determined, she will be duly
instructed in the religion of her future husband--whether Protestant
or Catholic.” And in a communication, which Lord Chancellor Hardwicke
called her Jacobite letter, she bewailed the fate of the poor Prince of
Wales, who, if restored, she said, might be easily guided in a right
direction.[313]
[Sidenote: 1701.]
A limitation of the heirship, within the pale of any particular
Protestant community, which may become less and less national as time
rolls on, is open to grave objections; but the limitation of descent
within Protestant lines of some kind, appears to rest upon a sound
basis. The reasons for it are furnished not by the religious, but by
the political character of Romanism. No doctrinal or ecclesiastical
opinions ought to exclude a legitimate heir, but a Popish claimant
is the subject of another and an ambitious power, which associates
temporal with spiritual authority, and exercises assumed prerogatives
after an elastic fashion, which can contract or expand them with
exquisite cunning, as fear darkens, or as hope brightens the prospect
of futurity. A Roman Catholic Sovereign is involved in complications
intolerable to a Protestant people, with a history full of warning
against foreign interference. It was a true instinct which led Lord
William Russell, amidst the aberrations of party zeal, to deprecate
as a terrible calamity the accession of a Papist; the same instinct
prompted the limitation of the Succession Act. Taught by the story of
the past, our ancestors guarded against Romish intermeddling, and it is
well for the fortunes of this country, that, acting on this maxim, our
fathers did not, in a fit of blind generosity, mistaken for justice,
open or keep open a door of mischief which, in some perilous hour, it
might be impossible to shut.
[Sidenote: JAMES II.]
Another important event was now approaching. James II., tired out
by a chequered life, desired to die. Whatever may be thought of his
principles, and the effect of his reign upon the interests of his
country, no one can doubt his religious sincerity, and when the
immoralities of his earlier days had been discontinued, confessed, and
deplored,[314] he manifested an earnest devoutness, tinged, of course,
by the peculiarities of his faith. Dwelling upon the examples of some
good men who had longed to be removed from this world, and upon the
moral dangers to which others had been exposed, he counted it “a high
presumption for a slender reed not to desire to be sheltered from such
terrible gusts as had overturned those lofty cedars.” When indulging in
such meditations, he was seized with a fit in early spring, from which
he partially recovered. Once more, within the Palace at St. Germains,
he was seized, in the midst of his devotions at chapel, with another
attack on the 2nd of September. Afterwards he sent for his son, who,
seeing the bed stained with blood from a violent hæmorrhage, burst
into violent weeping. Having calmed the child, his father conjured him
to adhere to the Catholic faith; to be obedient to his mother, and
grateful to the King of France; to serve God with all his strength,
and if he should reign, to remember kings were made not for themselves
but the good of their people, and to set a pattern of all manner of
virtues.[315]
This was good advice, but it bore an application such as would guide
the son in the father’s ways. He exhorted everybody about him to spend
pious lives, and urged his few Protestant courtiers and servants to
embrace the Catholic faith. It deserves mention that he forgave all
who had injured him, mentioning in particular his daughter Anne, and
his son-in-law William. But the most important circumstance connected
with his dying moments was the visit of the _Grand Monarque_,
who promised James he would take his family under his protection, and
acknowledge the Prince of Wales as King of England--an assurance which
drew joyful tears from the family and courtiers. On Friday, the 16th of
September, 1701, James expired; as if a saint had been taken to heaven,
the physicians and surgeons who made a _post-mortem_ examination,
kept particles of his body as relics, and the attendants dipped their
chaplets and handkerchiefs in his blood.[316]
[Sidenote: 1701.]
William went into mourning. Coaches and liveries were put in
black;[317] but tidings of the promise made by Louis soon aroused
indignation.
The King was in Holland at this crisis, but Sir Thomas Abney, the
Nonconformist Lord Mayor of London, at once caused an address to be
voted to His Majesty, expressive of the loyalty of the citizens, and of
their determination to oppose France and the Pretender.
After William had returned on his fortunate day, the 5th of November,
he on the 11th dissolved Parliament, and then called another: as he was
taking this step, loyal addresses poured in from all parts, and amongst
them one from the London Nonconformists, presented by John Howe. They
said they were grateful to Divine Providence for the settlement of
the Protestant succession, and pledged themselves to use their utmost
endeavours to maintain His Majesty’s title, and that of his successors,
as by law established.[318] An address of the same nature was presented
by the Baptists.[319]
The truth is, a new war now threatened Europe, for Louis had torn in
pieces the Ryswick Treaty by the bedside of James, and deliberately
defied the provisions of the Act of Settlement.
[Sidenote: THE SUCCESSION.]
When William met his new Parliament on the 31st of December, 1701,
he told them that the setting up of the pretended Prince of Wales
as King of England was not only the highest indignity to himself and
the nation, but it concerned every one who valued the Protestant
religion or the welfare of his country. “I have shown,” these were
the closing words he used, “and will always show, how desirous I am
to be the common father of all my people. Do you, in like manner, lay
aside parties and divisions. Let there be no other distinction heard
of amongst us for the future, but of those who are for the Protestant
religion and the present Establishment, and of those who mean a Popish
Prince and a French Government. I will only add this--if you do in good
earnest desire to see England hold the balance of Europe, and to be
indeed at the head of the Protestant interest, it will appear by your
right improving the present opportunity.”[320]
His speech elicited applause. It charmed the Whigs, and many had it
ornamentally printed in English, French, and Dutch, and hung up on the
walls of their homes. Political animosities were lulled for awhile by
circumstances inspiring concern for the Empire, and “the whole nation,
split before into an hundred adverse factions, with a King at its head
evidently declining to his tomb, the whole nation, Lords, Commons, and
people, proceeded as one body, informed by one soul.”[321] Unanimously
it was resolved that no peace should be made with France until after
reparation for the indignity done to England.
[Sidenote: 1702.]
A mania for oath-taking infected our fathers, and now, in addition to
the old law, which had occasioned the nonjuring party, came a new law,
which served to revive it. When death had taken away the Sovereign
to whom they regarded themselves as pledged while he lived, the
Nonjurors began to deliberate about taking the oath, but a new form of
abjuration stopped their deliberations.[322] Ken was troubled at the
prospect of its universal imposition, and hoped its enforcement would
be limited; but a Bill passed requiring not only all civil officers,
but also all ecclesiastics, all members of the Universities, and all
schoolmasters to acknowledge William as _lawful and rightful_
King, and to deny any title whatever in the pretended Prince of Wales.
Sixteen Lords, including Compton, Bishop of London, and Sprat, Bishop
of Rochester, protested against the Abjuration Bill;[323] and others
reasonably judged that to swear allegiance was one thing, but to swear
respecting the nature of a title to the Crown was another--that in the
first case people were within the region of fact, that in the second
they were brought into the region of theory. Calamy records, with no
apparent dissatisfaction, that the oath was thought to be the best
means of disappointing such as hoped by the assistance of France to
make way for the Pretender, and so accomplish the design of restoring
arbitrary power and the Popish religion.[324] The Abjuration Bill
received the Royal assent by Commission in the month of March, 1702.
Naturally at this juncture there were Jacobites who felt a flutter
of excitement. Looking upon oaths as cobwebs easily brushed away,
they hoped the Hanoverian succession might prove an idle dream, and,
on the tiptoe of expectation, began eagerly to talk to one another
of prospects, which brightened as the declining health of William
foreboded his speedy removal. One busy agent forwarded for the use
of the Stuarts certain proposals, in which he curiously sketched the
political views of religious parties in this country, as they struck
his eye.
[Sidenote: STATE OF PARTIES.]
“As for England, the parties most to be considered are--First, the
Episcopal, which, being in possession of the bells, is by far the
most numerous, though not the most active; for, being at their ease,
and possessing not only the tythes but the magistracy and profitable
employments of the nation, they flatter themselves with an opinion
that upon any emergency or change of State, they shall be able to give
the law to all other interests. And it is not improbable they might,
could they find out a way to settle the Crown upon any solid basis.
But that not being possible to be done but in the right line, that
party rather suffers than approves of what has been done, by adding the
House of Hanover to their weak and trembling entail, which, as it was
the project only of the Prince of Orange and his Dutch Council, is by
many suspected, but despised by more, nor could have passed the House
of Commons, but that they were told it was the only way to express a
contempt of the power of France; and by that means to make the people
believe that they feared nothing thence, and likewise to oblige that
Monarch to apprehend their power to be much greater than indeed it is;
to stave off a war they more apprehend and dread themselves than he
needs to do, notwithstanding all the rabble and trading part of the
nation are universally for it.
“The next party requiring consideration is the Presbyterian, which
consists of a malicious, sour, and subtle part of men, who are
more united in malice than the former, and do, with their demure
countenances and outside Pharisaical righteousness, draw from the
churches to their meeting-houses the most hypocritical part of the
trading people; so that their numbers are wonderfully increased of late
years, to the terror of the aspiring part of the episcopal parsons,
who dread that Bishops, Deans, and Chapters are tumbling down again,
knowing bare competencies too weak supports for their dissolute and
scandalous lives.
[Sidenote: 1702.]
“The next party to be considered is the Independent, under which
denomination may be included that rabble of divers sects, which by
above fifty several whimsical societies engross in the whole a greater
number of dissenters to the Prelatical Church than the Presbyterians
do, and are mortal enemies to both, including within them that sort of
men which are most properly called Republicans or Commonwealth’s-men, a
restless, bold, and busy spirit, easiest to be gained to your Majesty’s
interest, it being become a maxim amongst the wisest of them, that
since it appears impracticable to unite and settle all interests in a
Commonwealth, it is absolutely necessary to restore your Majesty and
the right line, to keep off the necessity of a perpetual war, which
these botching entails apparently threaten the nation with. Nay, in
their maxims they go farther, and say that it were better for the
kingdom in general, but most for themselves in particular, that the
rightful Monarch should be a Catholic rather than of the Episcopal or
Presbyterian ways, which will ever in their several turns, when united
to the Crown, persecute or at least discountenance them.
“The numerous party of the Quakers cannot be reckoned under the last
head, and are not to be disregarded as mad men, as they seem to many to
be. For, generally speaking; they are your Majesty’s friends, and in
all discourses with their oppugners charge them with their inhuman and
unjust dealing with their rightful Prince; an argument that nonplusses
all, and converts some to see the wickedness of their ways. Besides,
to my certain experience, there are many capable of being agents and
negotiators amongst them, as willing, as able, if well directed.
[Sidenote: STATE OF PARTIES.]
“Lastly, the non-jurant party of the nation may be thought of, though
not numerous enough without the Catholics to make any considerable
strength or appearance in the field. These, however, are respected
as men of honour, that the penitent or discontented may safely open
their minds to, and can confide in; so that properly instructed, they
are safe agitators dispersed in every corner of the nation, who too,
upon occasion, will, to a man, appear in the field for your Majesty’s
service.
“As for the Catholics, though I am sorry to say it, they seem the most
desponding and least useful party in the kingdom; nay, which is worse,
they are the only people who encourage the interested and atheistical
to stick to the Prince of Orange, though they both despise and hate
him as much as any; for the avowed despair the priests have brought
those to is so universally owned, that it discourages the waverers from
declaring themselves to be for their duty, and confirms the malicious
in their insolence, so that some course must be taken for altering
their conduct and conversation, or they will prove the greatest
_remora_ to any good design which may be set on foot.”[325]
[Sidenote: 1702.]
We are apt to read History amidst mental illusions. We unconsciously
transfer our knowledge of results to those who were living amidst
antecedents. Hence, sometimes we credit Englishmen of William’s reign
with a sense of security which could only arise from a defeat of plots,
which then appeared by no means certain. Indeed, the stability of the
Revolution Settlement was not assured until the middle of the next
century. Up to that time moments occurred when Government knew it sat
upon barrels of gunpowder. William’s throne to the last remained in
a shaky condition. The end alone prevents our recognizing the obvious
parallel between his reign and that of Louis Philippe in France. A
counter-Revolution was imminent throughout; and to our fathers in those
days we must not attribute the lordly conviction of permanence which we
cherish with so much pride. People in London under William could count
on things lasting as then they were, with almost as little confidence
as people in Paris during the last forty years. But powerful elements
blended with changes in Great Britain such as have not influenced
those of our Gallic neighbours. With them Revolutions have been
political--with us religious. Puritanism and Anglo-Catholicism--factors
both for good and evil--we find at work on this side the channel, not
on the other.
As Parliament was framing oaths, and Jacobites were brewing plots,
Convocation, being restored to activity, plunged itself into new
controversies, the outgrowths of old ones, which require to be recorded
with some minuteness, in spite of their being as dry as withered
thorns.