last year of William this refuge was cut off. On the death of James, and on the recognition of the Pretender by Lewis, the Parliament, aiming expressly at this clerical distinction,' imposed upon all ecclesiastical persons, as well as upon all other officials, the oath of abjuration, which required them to assert that the pretended Prince of Wales had no right whatever to the crown, and to swear allegiance to the existing sovereign as 'rightful' and 'lawful.'

This harsh and impolitic measure was only carried after a violent struggle, and it was very naturally expected that it would produce a great schism in the Church. The new oath involved a distinct judgment on the Revolution, and it is not easy to see how anyone who held the doctrine of the divine right of kings as it was commonly taught in the English Church from the time of the Restoration, could possibly take it. The resources of casuistry, however, have never been a monopoly of the disciples of Loyola; and State Churches, though they have many merits, are not the schools of heroism. At the time of the Reformation the great body of the English clergy, rather than give up their preferments, oscillated to and fro between Protestantism and Catholicism at the command of successive sovereigns, and their conduct in 1702 was very similar. With scarcely an exception they bowed silently before the law, and consented to take an oath which to every unsophisticated mind was an abnegation of the most cherished article of their teaching. At the time when the Act came into force Anne had just mounted the throne, and the hopes which the clergy conceived from her known affection for the Church made them peculiarly anxious

1 Burnet's Own Times, ii. 297.

* Burnet gives us a summary of the methods that were resorted to. 'Though in the oath they declared that the pretended Prince of Wales had not any right whatsoever to the crown, yet in a paper (which I saw) that went about among them, it was said that right was a term of law which had only relation to legal rights, but not to a Divine right or to birth

rights; so, since that right was condemned by law, they by abjuring it did not renounce the Divine right that he had by his birth. They also supposed that this abjuration would only bind during the present state of things, but not in case of another revolution or conquest.' Burnet's Own Times, ii. p. 314. See too a curious letter in Byrom's Remains, vol. i. part i. pp. 30-31.

to remain attached to the Government. The abjuration oath contributed to perpetuate the non-juror schism by repelling those who would otherwise have returned to the Church at the death of James. It lowered the morality of the country by impairing very materially the sanctity of oaths, but it neither paralysed the energies nor changed the teaching of the Tory clergy. At no period since the Restoration did they preach the doctrine of the divine right of kings and the duty of passive obedience more strenuously than in the reign of Anne, and at very few periods did they exercise a greater influence on the English people.

One of the most characteristic features of this teaching was the language that was adopted about Charles I. The memory of that sovereign had long since been transfigured in the Tory legend, and immediately after his execution it became the custom of the Episcopal clergy to draw elaborate parallels between his sufferings and those of Christ. The service in the Prayer-book commemorating the event, by appointing the narrative of the sufferings of Christ to be read from the Gospel, suggested the parallel, which was also faintly intimated by Clarendon, and developed in some of the Royalist poems and sermons with an astonishing audacity.' Foremost in this branch of literature was a very curious sermon preached before Charles II. at Breda in 1649.2 The preacher declared that amongst all the martyrs that followed Christ into heaven bearing his cross never was there any one who expressed so great conformity with our Saviour in his sufferings' as King Charles. He observed that the parallel was so exact that it extended to the minutest particulars, even to the hour of execution, for both sufferers died at three in the afternoon. When Christ was apprehended,' he continued, 'he wrought

1 See two curious collections called Monumentum Regale; or, Select Epitaphs and Poems on Charles I. (1649), and Vaticinium Votivum, with Elegies on Charles I., Lord Capel, and Lord Villiers (1st year of Charles I.'s Martyrdom). I subjoin one specimen:

Kings are gods once removed. It hence appears
No court but Heaven's can trie them by their
peers,

So that for Charles the Good to have been tryed
And cast by mortal votes was Deicide.

2 It was reprinted in the defence of the sermon of Dr. Binckes in 1702.

....

a miraculous cure for an enemy, healing Malchus' ear after it was cut off; so it is well known that God enabled our sovereign to work many wonderful cures even for his enemies. . . . . When our Saviour suffered, there were terrible signs and wonders, for there was darkness over all the land; so during the time of our sovereign's trial there were strange signs seen in the sky in divers places of the kingdom. When our Saviour suffered, the centurion, beholding his passion, was convinced that he was the Son of God, and feared greatly. So one of the centurions who guarded our sovereign was convinced and is to this day stricken with great fear, horror, and astonishment. When they had crucified our Saviour, they parted his garments amongst them, and for his coat (because being without seam it could not easily be divided) they did cast lots; even so, having crucified our sovereign, they have parted his garments amongst them, his houses and furniture, his parks and revenues, his three kingdoms, and for Ireland, because it will not be easily gained, they have cast lots who should go thither to conquer it, and, so, take it to themselves; in all these things our sovereign was the living image of our Saviour.' In the reign of Anne language of this kind again became common, and in 1702 a noted clergyman, named Binckes, in a sermon before the Lower House of Convocation, not only intimated that the plague and the fire of London were due to the death of Charles, but even proceeded to argue that his execution transcended in enormity the murder of Christ. If, with respect to the dignity of the person, to have been born King of the Jews was what ought to have screened our Saviour from violence; here is also one not only born to a crown but actually possessed of it. He was not only called king by some and at the same time derided by others for being so called, but he was acknowledged by all to be a king. He was not just dressed up for an hour or two in purple robes, and saluted with a "Hail, King!" but the usual ornaments of royalty were his customary apparel. . . . Our Saviour declaring that "His kingdom was not of this world" might look like a sort of renunciation of his temporal sovereignty, for the present

... could

When

desiring only to reign in the hearts of men, but here was nothing of this in the case before us. Here was an indisputable, unrenounced right of sovereignty, both by the laws of God and man. . . . Christ was pleased to set himself out of the reach of the usual temptations incident to royal greatness, and chose a condition which in all respects seemed to be the reverse to majesty, as if it had been with design to avoid the snares which accompany it, notwithstanding that he knew himself otherwise sufficiently secure, having neither been conceived in sin, nor in any way subject to the laws of it. Though the prince whom God was pleased to set over us was no way excepted from human frailty, had no other guard against sin when surrounded with temptations, but only a true sense of religion and the usual assistance of God's grace. . . . yet his greatest enemies never charge him with the least degree of vice. Pilate asked the Jews, "Shall I crucify your king?" they thought themselves obliged to express their utmost resentment against anyone that should pretend to be their king in opposition to Cæsar. This they did upon a principle of loyalty, and out of a misguided zeal, and some stories they had got of a design he had to destroy their temple, to set himself up, and pull down the Church; but in the case before us he against whom our people so clamorously called for justice was one whose greatest crime was his being a king and a friend to the Church.' This sermon was censured by the House of Lords as 'containing several expressions which gave just scandal and offence to all Christian people,' but the author was soon after appointed Dean of Lichfield, and was twice elected by the clergy Prolocutor of Convocation. The publication of Clarendon's history in 1702 and the two following years probably contributed something to the enthusiasm for Charles. A writer during the Sacheverell agitation, speaking of the doctrine of passive obedience, said, 'I may be positive, at Westminster Abbey where I heard one sermon of repentance, faith, and

ן

1 Parl. Hist., vi. 23-24. Burnet's Own Times, ii. 316.

renewing of the Holy Ghost, I heard three of the other, and it is hard to say whether Jesus Christ or King Charles were oftenest mentioned and magnified.' The University of Oxford caused two similar pictures to be painted, the one representing the death of Christ, and the other the death of Charles. An account of the sufferings of each was placed below; and they were hung in corresponding places in the Bodleian library. The poet Young, in a dedication to Queen Anne, described her grandsire as standing at the last judgment among the spotless saints and laurelled martyrs,' while the Almighty Judge, bending from the throne, examined the scars on the neck of Charles, and then looked at his own wounds.3

Another and still more curious feature of the Church enthusiasm under Queen Anne was the revival of the old belief that the sovereign was endowed with the miraculous power of curing the struma, or scrofulous tumours, by his touch. This singular superstition had existed from a very early time, both in England and in France. The English kings were supposed to have inherited the power from Edward the Confessor; the French, according to some writers, from St. Lewis, according to others, from Clovis. The miracle was performed with every circumstance of publicity, under the inspection of the royal surgeons, and in the presence of the King's chaplains, and the

'Bisset's Modern Fanatick (12th ed.) p. 57.

G. Agar Ellis's Inquiries respecting Clarendon (1827), p. 177.

"His lifted hands his lofty neck surround,
To hide the scarlet of a circling wound.
Th' Almighty Judge bends forward from
His throne

Those scars to mark, and then regards His

own.

Dedication to Queen Anne prefixed to
Young's Poem on the Last Day.

Young had the grace to suppress this
dedication in later editions of the
poem.

There was, however, some controversy on the subject, and a good deal of national jealousy was shown. Tooker thinks that the gift was originally the sole prerogative of the

English kings, that they derived it from Lucius, who was converted before Clovis, and that the French kings derived it from alliance of blood with the English. Charisma seu Donum Sanationis (1597). Laurentius, a physician of Henry IV. of France, wrote a book De Mirabili Strumarum Curatione, in which he appropriates the power solely to the French kings. Usually the English writers admitted that the French kings derived the power from St. Lewis, and contented themselves with asserting the superior antiquity of the British prerogative derived from Edward the Confessor. See Collier's Ecclesiastical Hist., Bk. iii. ch. 2. Fuller's Church Hist., Bk. ii.