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IX.

1686.

BOOK in private; and that his chapel should be fitted up, and provided with chaplains for its public celebration. The privy council assented to every demand which the parliament had refused; acquiesced in the pleasure of an absolute monarch, accountable to God alone for his conduct; but the answer was the less acceptable, as the members hesitated to pronounce the prerogative a legal security for the indulgence which they prepared to grant. At the same time the royal burrows were deprived of their privileges, and the annual elections of magistrates were suppressed. The provost was named by the king; the magistrates and common council were appointed by the provost, and thus, the election of members to serve in parliament was transferred to the crown. As the same measures were pursued in England, it appears that James was not indifferent to the sanction of parliament, which he affected to despise 21.

of indulgence.

The indulgence to papists was proclaimed in terms of religious toleration, to interest the presbyterians in the repeal of the penal laws and of the test. The servile declarations of the parliament were faithfully transcribed; but the disguise assumed by James was too thin to deceive. From the sovereign authority, royal prerogative, and absolute power, with which the king was invested, and which his subjects were all bound, without reservation, to obey, he conferred on moderate * Fount. Dec. i. 424. Wodrow, ii. 509.

IX.

1687.

presbyterians and quakers a limited toleration in BOOK private houses; but dispensed indiscriminately with the severe laws against Roman catholics, and repealed whatsoever prohibitions or penalties they might incur. He permitted the free exercise of their religion in chapels, and the enjoyment of all offices and benefices to be hereafter conferred. He released them from every restriction but these: not to preach in the open fields; not to invade the protestant churches by force; nor to make public processions through the principal streets. He annulled the preceding oaths of supremacy, and the tests; and substituted a new oath of allegiance, not only to renounce the right of resistance, but to maintain the full exercise of his absolute power. And he declared, for the encouragement of the protestant clergy, "that he would use no force, "nor invincible necessity, against any man on ac"count of his persuasion, or the protestant reli"gion:" neither would he deprive the present possessors of the lands appropriated formerly to the church 22. Such an arbitrary declaration, approved by none but the obsequious council, was calculated to excite universal discontent. The dispensing powers of prerogative were converted into the repeal of old, and into the creation of new laws, to which obedience was demanded, without reservation of the religion or moral obligations of mankind. A new oath was imposed, 22 Wodrow, ii. 515. App. 186. Ralph, i. 943. VOL. IV. N

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not as formerly of passive obedience, but for the active support of this absolute power. Even the promise to use no force, nor invincible necessity, on account of religion, nor to revoke the church lands from lay proprietors, intimated, not obscurely, that a change of religion was intended and already begun, and implied a sanguine expectation, that it would soon be complete23.

The declaration was received by the episcopal party with such undissembled rage, that their clergy were unable, either in discourse or in the pulpits, to suppress their discontent. That absolute power which they had laboured to create, was employed for their destruction. The government which they had sought to monopolize, was open to the catholics, and almost equally accessible to the presbyterians, their inveterate foes. Afraid to lose the invidious acquisitions which they had long possessed, they anticipated, and their apprehensions already beheld the return and increase of the fanatics, whom they had subdued or dispersed. Nor was the indulgence acceptable to the presbyterians, who were neither released from the laws, nor from a new oath to which they refused to submit. A second indulgence to dispense with the oath, was accepted by none. A third indulgence was issued; and from the same supreme and absolute authority, the laws against non-conformity, so severe and sanguinary, were indiscriminately 23 Burnet, iii. 136.

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IX.

1687.

repealed. The presbyterians scrupled no longer BOOK to embrace the benefit of toleration; but in their addresses to the throne, no approbation was bestowed on the repeal of the penal laws; and no solicitation could procure their assent to that insidious design. Their injuries were too recent and deep to be forgotten; nor could the most credulous believe that the author of their late persecution was sincere. They availed themselves, of the obvious intention of James to disunite the protestants; and their clergy, secretly devoted to the prince of Orange, returned from the continent to accept the indulgence, as a happy expedient to restore and reunite their sect 24.

tions in

England.

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The indulgence, a prelude to a similar declara- Transac tion in England, admonished all parties there, of the despotism which was to be expected from the dispensing powers. Amidst the advances which an infatuated monarch had already made, and the violence with which he impelled the nation towards the Romish see, a fictitious trial had been brought, and by displacing some, or corrupting others, he procured from the twelve judges a confirmation of his prerogative to dispense with the tests. The alarm which an illegal judgment for *the crown never fails to excite, was augmented by a declaration of indulgence, which, though it was more moderate than in Scotland, and thouh

24 Burnet, iii. 138. Earl of Balcarras's Memoirs, p. 7 Wodrow, ii. 624.

IX.

1688.

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BOOK it asserted neither the plenitude of absolute power, nor of unreserved obedience, expressed, in suspending the penal laws, an earnest wish that the nation were reconciled to the catholic church; and in addition to the free exercise of religion, suppressed indefinitely every oath or test that might exclude a part of his subjects from the service of their king. If, at first, the dissenters, from the bitterness of their past sufferings, were gratified with an unexpected, delusive toleration, the discontent of the nation was confirmed by a series of illegal attacks on the established church. The court of high commission was revived, under the auspices of the infamous Jefferies; and the bishop of London was the first object of its unjust persecution. The privileges of every corporation were invaded, to displace those who adhered to the penal laws and the test. The two universities were successively assailed, in order to introduce the Jesuits, whose superior reputation and industry might engross the education of youth, and the management of the richest foundations in Europe. Although a successful resistance was maintained by Cambridge, Oxford at least was expected to adhere to the passive doctrines of its own decrees. But the fellows of Magdalen col lege refused to elect as their president, a papist whom the king recommended with a dispensation from their oaths; and on their persisting in the choice of another, they were arbitrarily ejected by

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