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A.D. 1688.] TRIAL OF THE SEVEN BISHOPS.

643

Canterbury at their head, prepared a humble and respectful petition against the Declaration and the Mandate appended to it that the clergy should read it in all the churches. The language was loyal and submissive, and the paper was presented to his majesty on their knees.

Surprise and rage were equally fierce in that royal heart when he read that his hitherto devoted clergy declined to act against the law, as established by Parliament and Convocation. He called their conduct libellous and rebellious, and gave them notice that as God had given him the dispensing power he would be obeyed at whatever cost. The bishops solemnly protested their loyalty, and left the room. Next morning the petition was everywhere spread, and all the country took fire. Only two hundred out of the ten thousand clergymen of the Church read the Declaration, and they were hooted by their congregations. Other bishops gave in their adhesion to the petition. The original signers were sent to the Tower, and as the boat containing them passed down the Thames, the banks were lined by kneeling thousands, who prayed the old men's blessing; and no distinction was made in the warmth of support to the episcopal culprits between churchmen and dissenters. Their journey to the place of trial was a similar ovation; they were recognised on both sides as the champions of the national cause, and James felt that the death struggle was come. The judges he considered safe, and some of his trustworthy tradesmen were on the jury; but the popular feeling was infectious, and penetrated the sacred precincts of the bench and jury-box. One of the judges decided at once against the dispensing power, for that was the real point in dispute. "If such a power be allowed," he said, "there will need no parliament; all power will be in the king!" For fifteen hours the public expectation was at the highest, for the jurors had retired at six the evening before, and were to give in their verdict at nine o'clock. There was little repose in court or city that anxious night;

and shouts of delirious joy echoing at the appointed hour from the great rafters of Westminster Hall, and taken up in still advancing thunder by the thousands crowding all the spaces outside, till in a storm of sound it reached the farthest end of London, told James that the judgment was for the accused, that the fight was lost, and the dream of his life at an end.

§ 12. One shout had struck more terror to the soul of James than all the acclamation of the city. When the verdict was pronounced he was on Hounslow Heath, where his army was encamped. This was his final trust. If judges, juries, bishops, and everything should fail-the sword remained. Suddenly he heard great sounds surging up the Heath, as the news reached the outskirts of the tents. He asked Lord Faversham, his foreign and papist general, the cause. "It is the soldiers hurraing at the acquittal of the bishops, that's all," replied the thoughtless chief. But James had a deeper sense,-" Call you that all!" he said, and sank into moody thought. The end was indeed at hand. This was the end of June. At the end of September, the Prince of Orange, invited by the powerful party which had assumed the championship of civil and religious liberty, issued a proclamation announcing his approaching arrival in England to aid in the restoration of freedom, and to inquire (as regarded the right of his wife, the daughter and heiress of the king) into the suspicious circumstance of the birth of a son, which had been announced on the 10th of June. In England the belief was almost universal that this was a supposititious child, imposed on the nation to destroy the chances of a Protestant successor. Nine months before its birth, James had gone in solemn pilgrimage to the well of the Welsh saint, Winefred, who had a special faculty for dispelling the curse of barrenness. In due time the pregnancy was announced, and assurances were delivered from several popish shrines that the coming infant was a boy. The Princess Anne narrowly watched her step-mother, but could detect no symptom of

A.D. 1688.] INVASION OF WILLIAM OF ORANGE.

645

her approaching maternity, and at the moment of confinement a careful nurse was seen to introduce a large warmingpan into the queen's apartment; and while the Romanists persisted in calling the unhappy infant the child of prayer, the less ceremonious Protestants maintained that the warming-pan had been used for the deception, and that her majesty had not been confined at all. As time went on, and bitterness expired, the reality of the birth was tacitly admitted; and if there were circumstances which might still cast a doubt upon the fact, the weakness, obstinacy, and ignorance of the Chevalier St. George, or the Old Pretender (under which appellation this prince, or impostor, will meet us again), will be an additional evidence in favour of his legitimacy, as bearing traces of his father's character, and proving him a Stuart in every thought.

§ 13. Henceforth every step was in a downward course. William of Orange completed his preparations, and the English king, finding that even the Catholic princes considered him beyond their aid, threw himself in trembling repentance. on the bishops he had attempted to destroy. He prayed for their advice, and promised all the reforms required. They advised gentleness and justice in his rule, and a parliament to be immediately called. If they added a recommendation to him to return to the Anglican faith, it must have been in fulfilment of their professional duty without a hope of success. But he went as far as he could. He dismissed his Jesuit prime minister, Father Petre, and his renegade adviser, Lord Sunderland. He restored Dr. Hough to Magdalen, and the franchises to the corporations; and in the midst of all these agonizing sacrifices, the Protestant wind, as the north-east was called, blew favourably for the invading expedition, and William, with a wide stretch of transports, which almost filled up the straits of Dover, coasted along the southern shore, and landed at Torbay. (5th November.)

§ 14. After this date our feelings begin to change. The

tyrant was now harmless, the bigot without power; but the poor old father was deserted in his utmost need, the confiding friend was deceived, the crowned and idolized king betrayed. Everybody left him. His son-in-law was advancing to dethrone him; his daughter Anne was in league with his daughter Mary; Anne's husband, a silly personage who is generally forgotten, but who was Prince George of Denmark, lived for many days in a transport of surprise, and still in doubt if such a thing was possible, went over to the Deliverer's camp; so did the generals, the soldiers, the courtiers, and, among the earliest, that same Lord Churchill whom he had raised to wealth and importance; and finally, having sent the queen and the ill-omened infant to Calais, and losing courage at every new manifestation of the national dislike, he disguised himself on the morning of the 11th of December, and after a variety of adventures, which lasted till the 23rd, made an ignominious escape from the kingdom he had attempted to enslave. The sceptres, which had felt the grasp of William the Conqueror and Robert Bruce, were exchanged for rosaries furnished to him by Père la Chaise, along with the wages he continued to receive from their master the King of France.

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FRANCE.-Louis XIV.

SPAIN. Charles II.; Philip V.
Emperor of GERMANY.-Leopold.

POPES.-Alexander VIII.; Innocent XII.; Clement XI.

§ 1. Interregnum. Accession of William and Mary. Convention Parliament. Their resolutions declaring the throne vacant.-§ 2. Declaration of rights. William and Mary formally declared to be king and queen.-§ 3. State of public feeling and of parties.-§ 4. War declared against France. James sails from Brest with a French expedition against Ireland.—§ 5. Mutiny in the Church, and rising of a Scottish regiment in favour of King James. William's conciHis difficulties. James lands at Dublin. His liatory measures. triumphant reception by the Irish Parliament.-§ 6. Battle of Killicrankie, in Scotland.-§ 7. Siege of Londonderry. King William lands at Carrickfergus, and takes the command of the forces in Ireland. Proceedings of the Irish Parliament against William and the Protestant cause. They repeal the Act of Settlement, and pass various obnoxious measures.-§ 8. Battle of the Boyne, and defeat of the Irish Catholics.-§ 9. Flight of James. Siege of Limerick, and return of William to England.-§ 10. Marlborough left in command of the British army.-§ 11. The war transferred to Flanders. Whigs and Tories, Jacobites and Nonjurors. Naval action with the French off Beachy Head.—§ 12. Energy of Queen Mary during the

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