Father Francis, a Benedictine, was recommended by the king’s mandate to the university of Cambridge for the degree of master of arts; and as it was usual for the university to confer that degree on persons eminent for learning, without regard to their religion; and as they had even admitted lately the secretary to the ambassador of Morocco; the king on that account thought himself the better entitled to compliance. But the university considered, that there was a great difference between a compliment bestowed on foreigners, and degrees which gave a title to vote in all the elections and statutes cf the university, and which, if conferred on the Catholics would infallibly in time render that sect entirely superior. They therefore refused to obey the king’s mandate, and were cited to appear before the court of ecclesiastical commission. The vice-chancellor was suspended by that court; but as the university chose a man of spirit to succeed him, the king thought proper for the present to drop his pretensions.
The attempt upon the university of Oxford was prosecuted with more inflexible obstinacy, and was attended with more important consequences. This university had lately, in their famous decree, made a solemn profession of passive obedience; and the court, probably, expected that they would show their sincerity when their turn came to practise that doctrine; which, though, if carried to the utmost extent it be contrary both to reason and to nature, is apt to meet with the more effectual opposition from the latter principle. The president of Magdalen College, one of the richest foundations in Europe, dying about this time, a mandate was sent in favor of Farmer, a new convert, but one who, besides his being a Catholic, had not in other respects the qualifications required by the statutes for enjoying that office. The fellows of the college made submissive applications to the king for recalling his mandate; but before they received an answer, the day came on which, by their statutes, they were obliged to proceed to an election. They chose Dr. Hough, a man of virtue, as well as of the firmness and vigor requisite for maintaining his own rights and those of the university. In order to punish the college for this contumacy, as it was called, an inferior ecclesiastical commission was sent down, and the new president and the fellows were cited before it. So little regard had been paid to any consideration besides religion, that Farmer, on inquiry, was found guilty of the lowest and most scandalous vices; insomuch that even the ecclesiastical commissioners were ashamed to insist on his election. A new mandate, therefore, was issued in favor of Parker, lately created bishop of Oxford, a man of a prostitute character, but who, like Farmer, atoned for all his vices by his avowed willingness to embrace the Catholic religion. The college represented, that all presidents had ever been appointed by election and there were few instances of the king’s interposing by his recommendation in favor of any candidate: that, having already made a regular election of a president, they could not deprive him of his office, and, during his lifetime, substitute any other in his place: that, even if there were a vacancy, Parker, by the statutes of their founder, could not be chosen: that they had all of them bound themselves by oath to observe these statutes, and never on any account to accept of a dispensation and that the college had at all times so much distinguished itself by its loyalty, that nothing but the most invincible necessity could now oblige them to oppose his majesty’s inclinations. All these reasons availed them nothing. The president and all the fellows, except two who complied, were expelled the college; and Parker was put in possession of the office. This act of violence, of all those which were committed during the reign of James, is perhaps the most illegal and arbitrary. When the dispensing power was the most strenuously insisted on by court lawyers, it had still been allowed, that the statutes which regard private property could not legally be infringed by that prerogative: yet in this instance it appeared, that even these were not now secure from invasion. The privileges of a college are attacked: men are illegally dispossessed of their property, for adhering to their duty, to their oaths, and to their religion: the fountains of the church are attempted to be poisoned; nor would it be long, it was concluded, ere all ecclesiastical, as well as civil preferments, would be bestowed on such as, negligent of honor, virtue, and sincerity, basely sacrificed their faith to the reigning superstition. Such were the general sentiments; and as the universities have an intimate connection with the ecclesiastical establishments, and mightily interest all those who have there received their education, this arbitrary proceeding begat a universal discontent against the king’s administration.
The next measure of the court was an insult still more open on the ecclesiastics, and rendered the breach between the king and that powerful body fatal as well as incurable. It is strange that James, when he felt, from the sentiments of his own heart, what a mighty influence religious zeal had over him should yet be so infatuated as never once to suspect, that it might possibly have a proportionable authority over his subjects. Could he have profited by repeated experience, he had seen instances enough of their strong aversion to that communion, which, from a violent, imperious temper, he was determined, by every possible expedient, to introduce into his kingdoms.
1688
The king published a second declaration of indulgence, almost in the same terms with the former; and he subjoined an order, that, immediately after divine service, it should be read by the clergy in all the churches. As they were known universally to disapprove of the use made of the suspending power, this clause, they thought, could be meant only as an insult upon them; and they were sensible, that by their compliance, they should expose themselves both to public contempt, on account of their tame behavior, and to public hatred, by their indirectly patronizing so obnoxious a prerogative.[*] They were determined, therefore, almost universally, to preserve the regard of the people; their only protection, while the laws were become of so little validity, and while the court was so deeply engaged in opposite interests. In order to encourage them in this resolution, six prelates, namely, Lloyde bishop of St. Asaph, Ken of Bath and Wells, Turner of Ely, Lake of Chichester, White of Peterborough, and Trelawney of Bristol, met privately with the primate, and concerted the form of a petition to the king. They there represent, in few words, that, though possessed of the highest sense of loyalty, a virtue of which the church of England had given such eminent testimonies; and though desirous of affording ease in a legal way to all Protestant dissenters; yet, because the declaration of indulgence was founded on a prerogative formerly declared illegal by parliament, they could not, in prudence, honor, or conscience, so far make themselves parties, as the distribution of it all over the kingdom would be interpreted to amount to. They therefore besought the king, that he would not insist upon their reading that declaration.[**]
* When Charles dissolved his last parliament, he set forth a
declaration, giving his reasons for that measure, and this
declaration the clergy had been ordered to read to the
people after divine service. These orders were agreeable to
their party prejudices, and they willingly submitted to
them. The contrary was now the case.
** The words of the petition were: That the great averseness
found in themselves to their distributing and publishing in
all their churches your majesty’s late declaration for
liberty of conscience, proceeds neither from any want of
duty and obedience to your majesty, (our holy mother the
church of England, being both in her principles and her
constant practice unquestionably loyal, and having to her
great honor been more than once publicly acknowledged to be
so by your gracious majesty,) nor yet from any want of
tenderness to dissenters, in relation to whom we are willing
to come to such a temper as shall be thought fit, when the
matter shall be considered and settled in parliament and
convocation; but, among many other considerations, from this
especially, because that declaration is founded upon such a
dispensing power as hath been often declared illegal in
parliament, and particularly in the years 1662 and 1672, and
in the beginning of your majesty’s reign, and is a matter of
so great moment and consequence to the whole nation both in
church and state, that your petitioners cannot, in prudence,
honor, or conscience, so far make themselves parties to it
as a distribution of it all over the nation, and the solemn
publication of it once and again, even in God’s house, and
in the time of divine service, must amount to in common and
reasonable construction.
The king was incapable, not only of yielding to the greatest opposition, but of allowing the slightest and most respectful contradiction to pass uncensured. He immediately embraced a resolution (and his resolutions, when once embraced, were inflexible) of punishing the bishops, for a petition so popular in its matter, and so prudent and cautious in the expression. As the petition was delivered him in private, he summoned them before the council; and questioned them whether they would acknowledge it. The bishops saw his intention, and seemed long desirous to decline answering; but being pushed by the chancellor, they at last avowed the petition. On their refusal to give bail, an order was immediately drawn for their commitment to the Tower; and the crown lawyers received directions to prosecute them for the seditious libel which, it was pretended, they had composed and uttered.
The people were already aware of the danger to which the prelates were exposed; and were raised to the highest pitch of anxiety and attention with regard to the issue of this extraordinary affair. But when they beheld these fathers of the church brought from court under the custody of a guard, when they saw them embark in vessels on the river, and conveyed towards the Tower, all their affection for liberty, all their zeal for religion, blazed up at once; and they flew to behold this affecting spectacle. The whole shore was covered with crowds of prostrate spectators, who at once implored the blessing of those holy pastors, and addressed their petitions towards heaven for protection during this extreme danger to which their country and their religion stood exposed. Even the soldiers, seized with the contagion of the same spirit, flung themselves on their knees before the distressed prelates and craved the benediction of those criminals whom they were appointed to guard. Some persons ran into the water, that they might participate more nearly in those blessings which the prelates were distributing on all around them. The bishops themselves, during this triumphant suffering, augmented the general favor, by the most lowly, submissive deportment; and they still exhorted the people to fear God, honor the king, and maintain their loyalty; expressions more animating than the most inflammatory speeches. And no sooner had they entered the precincts of the Tower than they hurried to chapel, in order to return thanks for those afflictions which heaven, in defence of its holy cause, had thought them worthy to endure.
Their passage, when conducted to their trial, was, if possible, attended by greater crowds of anxious spectators. All men saw the dangerous crisis to which affairs were reduced, and were sensible, that the king could not have put the issue on a cause more unfavorable for himself than that in which he had so imprudently engaged. Twenty-nine temporal peers (for the other prelates kept aloof) attended the prisoners to Westminster Hall; and such crowds of gentry followed the procession, that scarcely was any room left for the populace to enter. The lawyers for the bishops were, Sir Robert Sawyer, Sir Francis Pemberton, Pollexfen, Treby, and Sommers. No cause, even during the prosecution of the Popish plot, was ever heard with so much zeal and attention. The popular torrent, which of itself ran fierce and strong, was now further irritated by the opposition of government.
The council for the bishops pleaded, that the law allowed subjects, if they thought themselves aggrieved in any particular, to apply by petition to the king, provided they kept within certain bounds, which the same law prescribed to them, and which, in the present petition, the prelates had strictly observed: that an active obedience in cases which were contrary to conscience, was never pretended to be due to government; and law was allowed to be the great measure of the compliance and submission of subjects: that when any person found commands to be imposed upon him which he could not obey, it was more respectful in him to offer his reasons for refusal, than to remain in a sullen and refractory silence: that it was no breach of duty in subjects, even though not called upon, to discover their sense of public measures, in which every one had so intimate a concern: that the bishops in the present case were called upon, and must either express their approbation by compliance, or their disapprobation by petition: that it could be no sedition to deny the prerogative of suspending the laws; because there really was no such prerogative, nor ever could be, in a legal and limited government: that even if this prerogative were real, it had yet been frequently controverted before the whole nation, both in Westminster Hall and in both houses of parliament; and no one had ever dreamed of punishing the denial of it as criminal: that the prelates, instead of making an appeal to the people, had applied in private to his majesty, and had even delivered their petition so secretly, that, except by the confession extorted from them before the council, it was found impossible to prove them the authors: and that though the petition was afterwards printed and dispersed, it was not so much as attempted to be proved that they had the least knowledge of the publication.