[114] Ralph, 943; Mazure, ii. 207.
[115] London Gazette, June 9, 1687. Shower had been knighted a little before, on presenting, as recorder of London, an address from the grand jury of Middlesex, thanking the king for his declaration. Id. May 12.
[116] London Gazette of 1687 and 1688, passim; Ralph, 946, 368. These addresses grew more ardent after the queen's pregnancy became known. They were renewed of course, after the birth of the Prince of Wales. But scarce any appear after the expected invasion was announced. The Tories (to whom add the dissenters) seem to have thrown off the mask at once, and deserted the king whom they had so grossly flattered, as instantaneously as parasites on the stage desert their patron on the first tidings of his ruin.
The dissenters have been a little ashamed of their compliance with the declaration, and of their silence in the popish controversy during this reign. Neal, 755, 768; and see Biogr. Brit. art. Alsop. The best excuses are, that they had been so harassed that it was not in human nature to refuse a mitigation of suffering on almost any terms; that they were by no means unanimous in their transitory support of the court; and that they gladly embraced the first offers of an equal indulgence held out to them by the church.
[117] "The king now finding that nothing which had the least appearance of novelty, though never so well warranted by the prerogative, would go down with the people, unless it had the parliamentary stamp on it, resolved to try if he could get the penal laws and test taken off by that authority." Life of James, ii. 134. But it seems by M. Mazure's authorities, that neither the king nor Lord Sunderland wished to convoke a parliament, which was pressed forward by the eager catholics, ii. 399.
[118] Life of James, p. 139.
[119] Ralph, 965, 966. The object was to let in the dissenters. This was evidently a desperate game: James had ever mortally hated the sectaries as enemies to monarchy; and they were irreconcilably adverse to all his schemes.
[120] Burnet; Life of James, 169; D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft, i. 326. Lord Halifax, as is supposed, published a letter of advice to the dissenters, warning them against a coalition with the court, and promising all indulgence from the church. Ralph, 950; Somers Tracts, viii. 50.
[121] Ralph, 967; Lonsdale, p. 15. "It is to be observed," says the author of this memoir, "that most part of the offices in the nation, as justices of the peace, deputy-lieutenants, mayors, aldermen, and freemen of towns, are filled with Roman catholics and dissenters, after having suffered as many regulations as were necessary for that purpose. And thus stands the state of this nation in this month of September 1688."—P. 34. Notice is given in the London Gazette for December 11, 1687, that the lists of justices and deputy-lieutenants would be revised.
[122] Life of James, 183.