Two days only after the bishops were sent to the Tower—namely, the 10th of June—was announced what, under other circumstances, would have been a most auspicious event for James—the birth of an heir. But the nation was so full of suspicion, both of the monarch and the Jesuits that he had around him, that it would not credit the news that the healthy boy which was born was the actual child of James and his queen. It was certainly of the highest moment that James should have taken every precaution to have the birth verified beyond dispute; but in this respect he had been as singularly maladroit as in all his other affairs. As the Protestants were, of course, highly suspicious, he should have had the usual number of Protestant witnesses ready. But the queen, who sat playing cards at Whitehall till near midnight, was suddenly taken ill a month before the calculated time, and there was neither the Princess Anne present—she was away at Bath,—nor the Archbishop of Canterbury, nor the Dutch ambassador—whom it was so necessary to satisfy on behalf of the Prince and Princess of Orange,—nor any of the Hyde family, not even the Earl of Clarendon, the uncle of Mary and Anne. On the contrary, there were plenty of Jesuits, and the renegades Dover, Peterborough, Murray, Sunderland—who directly afterwards avowed himself a Catholic—Mulgrave, and others. The consequence was that the whole people declared the child spurious; that it had been introduced into the bed in a warming-pan; and when the public announcement was made, and a day of solemn thanksgiving was appointed, there was no rejoicing. Fireworks were let off by order of Government; but the night was black and tempestuous, and flashes of lurid lightning paled the artificial fires, and made the people only the more firm in the belief that heaven testified against the imposture. And yet there was no imposture. There were some Protestants present—sufficient to prevent any collusion, and particularly Dr. Chamberlain, the eminent accoucheur; but James, by his folly and tyranny, had deprived himself of the public confidence, and fixed on his innocent offspring a brand of disavowment, which clung to him and his fortunes, and has only been removed by the cooler judgment of recent times. William of Orange sent over Zulestein to congratulate James on the birth of an heir; but that minister brought back the account that not one person in ten believed the child to be the queen's.

THE SEVEN BISHOPS ENTERING THE TOWER. (See p. [328].)

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On Friday, the 15th of June, the first day of term, the bishops were brought from the Tower to the King's Bench, and, pleading not guilty, they were admitted to bail till the 29th of June. During this fortnight the public excitement continued to augment, and from every quarter of the kingdom—even from the Presbyterians of Scotland, who had shown themselves such determined opponents of prelacy, and had been such sufferers from it—came messages of sympathy and encouragement to the bishops. On that day immense crowds assembled to receive their blessings, and to utter others on their way to Westminster Hall; and this homage was the warmer because the prelates had resisted the demand of Sir Edward Hales, the Lieutenant of the Tower, for his fees, this renegade having shown them little courtesy, and now plainly letting them know that, if they came again into his hands, they should lie on the bare stones.

Every means had been taken to pack a jury. Sir Samuel Astrey, the Clerk of the Crown, had been summoned to the palace, and been instructed by James and his great legal adviser, Jeffreys. The judges, too, were of the most base and complying character. They were such as had been raised from the very lowest ranks of the bar for their servile fitness, and because the more eminent lawyers would not stoop to such ignominy. They were Wright; Allibone, a Papist; Holloway and Powell; the Attorney-General, Sir Thomas Powis, an inferior lawyer; the Solicitor-General, Sir William Williams, a man of ability and vigour, but rash, imperious, and unpopular. Ranged against these were the most brilliant lawyers of the time—Sawyer and Finch, formerly Attorney- and Solicitor-General; Pemberton, formerly Chief Justice; Maynard; Sir George Treby, who had been Recorder of London, and others. Somers, afterwards Lord Chancellor in William's reign, was the bishops' junior counsel. The foreman of the jury was Sir Roger Langley. On the side of the prosecution, the judges, and even the blustering Jeffreys, betrayed a sense of terror.

The trial commenced at nine in the morning, and not till seven in the evening did the jury retire to consider their verdict. The lawyers for the prisoners raised great difficulties as to proving the handwriting of the libel, and next in proving its being published in Westminster. The Crown lawyers were obliged to bring into court Blathwayt, a clerk of the Privy Council, for this object; and then the counsel for the prisoners stopped him, and compelled him to state what had passed there between the bishops and the king—much to the chagrin of the Government party. Before the publication could be proved, even Sunderland was obliged to be brought into court in a sedan. He was pale, trembled violently from fright and shame of his late apostacy, and gave his evidence with his eyes fixed on the ground. But even then, when the judges came to consider the bishops' petition, they were divided in opinion. Wright and Allibone declared it a libel, and contended for the royal right of the dispensing power; but Holloway conceded that the petition appeared to him perfectly allowable from subjects to their sovereign; and Powell set himself right with the public and wrong with the Court—a significant sign—by boldly declaring both the Dispensing Power and the Declaration of Indulgence contrary to law.

With such sentiments developing themselves on the bench, there could be little doubt what the verdict would be; yet the jury sat all night, from seven o'clock till six the next morning, before they were fully agreed, there being, however, only three dissentients at first. When the court met at ten o'clock, the crowd, both within and without, was crushing and immense; and when the foreman pronounced the words "Not guilty," Halifax was the first to start up and wave his hat; and such a shout was sent up as was heard as far as Temple Bar. The news flew far and wide; the shouting and rejoicing broke out in every quarter of the town. The whole population, nobility, clergy, people, all seemed gone mad. There were more than sixty lords who had stood out the trial, and now threw money amongst the throngs as they drove away. The people formed a line down to the water's edge, and knelt as the bishops passed through, asking their blessing. The Attorney-General, Williams, was pursued in his coach with curses and groans; and Cartwright, the Bishop of Chester, and James's tool of the High Commission, being descried, was hooted at as "That wolf in sheep's clothing!" and, as he was a very fat man, one cried, "Room for the man with the Pope in his belly!"

The whole town was in an intoxication of delight. Bonfires were lit, guns fired, bells rung all night, and the Pope in effigy was burnt in several places—one before the door of Whitehall itself; another was kindled before the door of the Earl of Salisbury, who had lately gone over to Popery; and his servants, in their ill-timed zeal, rushing out to extinguish it, were attacked, and, firing on the people, killed the parish beadle, who was come to attempt what they themselves were attempting—to put out the fire. That morning James had gone to review his troops on Hounslow Heath. He received the news of the acquittal by a special messenger while in Lord Feversham's tent. He was greatly enraged, and set out at once for London. Before, however, he was clear of the camp the news had flown amongst the soldiers, and a tremendous cheering startled him. "What noise is that?" demanded James. "Oh!" said the general, "it is nothing but the soldiers shouting because the bishops are acquitted." "And call you that nothing?" asked James; and added angrily, "but so much the worse for them."

The very day which pronounced the acquittal of the bishops saw signed and despatched an invitation from the leading Whigs to William of Orange to come over and drive the tyrant from the throne. The Whigs had long been contemplating and preparing for this end; they now saw that the crisis was come. The brutal and besotted king had effectually alienated all hearts from him. From him nothing but destruction of every liberty and sentiment that Englishmen held dear was to be expected; and in the heir which was now, as was generally believed, foisted on the nation by the king and the Jesuits, there was only the pledge of the reign of Popery and proscription, and of the extermination of all those high hopes and privileges which were entwined with Protestant freedom. The Whig leaders had sent repeatedly to William to stimulate him to the enterprise; but, apart from his habitual caution and the salutary fear that Monmouth's reception had inspired, the Prince of Orange had many difficulties to contend with from the peculiar constitution of the Dutch Republic, and the peculiar views and interests of his allies. Though at the head of the Dutch confederation, he had always experienced much opposition from individual states and cities, especially Amsterdam, which his great enemy, Louis of France, managed to influence. This invitation called him to expel from his throne a Catholic king, and replace his Government by a Protestant one, though the Pope and Spain, the most Catholic of countries, were his close allies, and must not be offended. He had, therefore, stipulated that he should receive such an invitation under the hands and seals of the Whig leaders as should leave little doubt of his reception, and that he should be regarded as the saviour from an intolerable ruler, and not forced to attempt a conquest which must in its very success bring ruin by wounding the national pride of England.