[261] Burnet; Parl. Hist. 184.
[262] Parl. Hist. 196.
[263] Id. 212, 216.
[264] Burnet; Ralph. But a better account of what took place in the convocation and among the commissioners will be found in Kennet's Compl. Hist. 557, 588, etc.
[265] Leslie's Case of the Regale and Pontificate is a long dull attempt to set up the sacerdotal order above all civil power, at least as to the exercise of its functions, and especially to get rid of the appointment of bishops by the Crown, or, by parity of reasoning, of priests by laymen. He is indignant even at laymen choosing their chaplains, and thinks they ought to take them from the bishop; objecting also to the phrase, my chaplain, as if they were servants: "otherwise the expression is proper enough to say my chaplain, as I say my parish priest, my bishop, my king, or my God; which argues my being under their care and direction, and that I belong to them, not they to me."—P. 182. It is full of enormous misrepresentation as to the English law.
[266] See Burnet (Oxf. iv. 409) and Lord Dartmouth's note.
[267] No opposition seems to have been made in the House of Commons; but we have a protest from four peers against it. Burnet, though he offers some shameful arguments in favour of the bill, such as might justify any tyranny, admits that it contained some unreasonable severities, and that many were really adverse to it. A bill proposed in 1705, to render the late act against papists effective, was lost by 119 to 43 (Parl. Hist. vi. 514); which shows that men were ashamed of what they had done. A proclamation, however, was issued in 1711, immediately after Guiscard's attempt to kill Mr. Harley, for enforcing the penal laws against Roman catholics, which was very scandalous, as tending to impute that crime to them. Boyer's Reign of Anne, p. 429. And in the reign of Geo. I. (1722) £100,000 was levied by a particular act on the estates of papists and non-jurors. This was only carried by 188 to 172; Sir Joseph Jekyll and Mr. Onslow, afterwards speaker, opposing it, as well as Lord Cowper in the other house. 9 G. I. c. 18; Parl. Hist. viii. 51, 353. It was quite impossible that those who sincerely maintained the principles of toleration should long continue to make any exception; though the exception in this instance was wholly on political grounds, and not out of bigotry, it did not the less contravene all that Taylor and Locke had taught men to cherish.
[268] 11 & 12 W. 3, c. 4. It is hardly necessary to add, that this act was repealed in 1779.
[269] Butler's Memoirs of Catholics, ii. 64.
[270] While the bill regulating the succession was in the House of Commons, a proviso was offered by Mr. Godolphin, that nothing in this act is intended to be drawn into example or consequence hereafter, to prejudice the right of any protestant prince or princess in their hereditary succession to the imperial crown of those realms. This was much opposed by the whigs; both because it tended to let in the son of James II., if he should become a protestant, and for a more secret reason, that they did not like to recognise the continuance of any hereditary right. It was rejected by 179 to 125. Parl. Hist. v. 249. The Lords' amendment in favour of the Princess Sophia was lost without a division. Id. 339.