1688 brewer, held out. "Whatever I do," he said, “I am sure to be half ruined. If I say Not Guilty I shall brew no more for the king, and if I say Guilty I shall brew no more for anybody else." He decided that the king's custom was the best worth keeping. To a gentleman named Austen who proposed to argue with him he replied that his mind was already made up. "If you come to that,” replied Austen, “look at me. I am the largest and strongest of this twelve; and before I find such a petition a libel, here I will stay till I am no bigger than a tobacco pipe." The jury were locked up through the night, and when the morning of the 30th came Arnold had given way. A verdict of Not Guilty was given in. The crowds in Westminster Hall and in the streets of London burst out into shouts of joy. At Hounslow, where James was reviewing the regiments on which he trusted to break down all popular resistance, the soldiers shouted like the rest. James asked what it all meant. "Nothing," he was told; "the soldiers are glad that the bishops are acquitted." "Do you call that nothing?" he answered. "So much the worse for them." The acquittal of the bishops would, but for one circumstance, have strengthened the nation in its resolution patiently to wait till James's death placed his daughter on the throne. On June 10, however, a son had been born to James, and that fact changed the whole situation. The boy would be educated in his father's religion, and England was threatened with a Roman Catholic dynasty in which each successive ruler would, from his childhood, be brought up in the belief that he might break through all legal restraints whenever he could have the approval of judges appointed by himself and liable to dismissal whenever he pleased. At first the general dislike of this disagreeable fact took the shape of incredulity, and it was almost universally believed, without a shadow of foundation, that the boy was a supposititious child procured from some poor mother and brought in a warming-pan into the queen's chamber. Whether he were supposititious or not, there was no doubt that he would be treated as James's heir. Tories were as much concerned as Whigs at the prospect before them. The doctrine of non-resistance was forgotten, and on June 30, the day of the bishops' acquittal, seven important personages, some being Whigs and some Tories, invited the Prince of Orange to land with an armed force to defend the liberties of England. William would probably not have accepted the invitation if JAMES II RECEIVES THE NEWS AT WHITEHALL OF THE LANDING OF THE PRINCE OF ORANGE Painting by E. M. Ward, R. A. 1688 the constitutional rights of Englishmen had alone been at stake; but he had made it the object of his life to struggle against Louis, and he knew that war was on the point of breaking out between Louis and an alliance in which almost every European prince took part excepting James. He accepted the invitation that he might bring England into that alliance; and made preparations, which could not be hidden from James. James made concessions, abolished the Ecclesiastical Commission, gave back the charters of the City of London and the other corporations, and restored the Fellows of Magdalen. Anxious as William was to come, he was delayed for some time. The army of Louis was on the southern frontier of the Spanish Netherlands, and William could not stir as long as an invasion of his Spanish allies was threatened. Louis, however, offered James the assistance of his fleet to repel the expected Dutch expedition. James replied that he was quite able to take care of himself. Louis lost his temper, withdrew his army from the frontier of the Netherlands, and sent it to begin the war with the allies by burning and ravaging the Palatinate. William put to sea, intending to land in Torbay. On the morning of November 5 it was found that the fleet had passed the haven for which it was bound; and as the wind was blowing it strongly on, there seemed no possibility of returning. William believed that nothing but failure was before him. "You may go to prayers, doctor," he said to Burnet, an English clergyman who accompanied him; "all is over." In a moment the wind changed and bore the fleet back into Torbay, and William was enabled to land safely at Brixham. Both he and Burnet were convinced that God had Himself guided them thus far in safety for the deliverance of His people. William marched upon London, and after a while the gentry of the counties through which he passed poured in to support him. The north and the midlands rose under the Earls of Devonshire and Danby and other lords, Whig and Tory. The doctrine of nonresistance was thrown to the winds. James set out with his troops to combat William. He reached Salisbury, but the officers of his own army and his courtiers deserted him. Among those who fled to William was Lord Churchill, afterwards known as the Duke of Marlborough and the greatest soldier of the age. He had received many favors from James which he now repaid by inciting all those whom he could influence to abandon their king. Among 1688-1689 these was James's younger daughter Anne, over whom Churchill's wife exercised a most powerful influence, and who now, together with her husband, Prince George of Denmark, fled to William. James, left almost alone, made his way back to London, which he reached on November 27. On the 30th he ordered the preparation of writs for the election of a Parliament, and proposed an accommodation with William, who by that time had reached Hungerford. It was agreed that both armies should remain at a distance of forty miles from London in order to enable the new Parliament to meet in safety. James was, in reality, determined not to submit. On December 10 he sent his wife and son to France. On the 11th he attempted to follow them, burning the writs and dropping the great seal into the Thames, in the hope that everything might fall into confusion for want of the symbol of legitimate authority. There were riots in London, and the Roman Catholic chapels were sacked and destroyed. There was a general call to William to hasten his march. On the 12th, however, James was stopped near Sheerness by some fishermen and brought back to London. William had no mind to have a second royal martyr on his hands, and did everything to frighten James into another flight. On December 18 James left London and William arrived at Whitehall. On December 23, with William's connivance, James embarked for France. Among the crowd which welcomed William was Sergeant Maynard, an old man of ninety. "You must," said William to him, "have survived all the lawyers of your standing.” “Yes, sir," replied Maynard, " and, but for your Highness, I should have survived the laws too." He expressed the general sense of almost every Englishman. How to return to a legal system with the least possible disturbance was the problem to be faced. William consulted the House of Lords and an assembly composed of all persons who had sat in any of Charles's Parliaments, together with special representatives of the City. Members of James's own Parliament were not summoned, on the plea that the return to it of members chosen by the remodeled corporations made it no true Parliament. The body thus consulted advised William to call a Convention, which would be a Parliament in everything except that there was no king to summon it. On January 22, 1689, the Convention met. The House of Commons contained a majority of Whigs, while the Tories were in a majority in the Lords. On the 28th the Commons resolved that |