1678–80.
In the affairs of his own Church, Sancroft endeavoured to effect some useful reforms and improvements. Considerable laxity prevailed in the admission of candidates to holy orders, testimonials to character being often signed as a mere form, without sufficient knowledge of the persons in whose favour they were given. To check this injurious practice, Sancroft, in the month of August, 1678,[20] sent directions to his suffragans, that thenceforth such recommendations should be more carefully prepared, should contain fuller particulars, and should be more cautiously used. The poverty of vicarages, and other small ecclesiastical benefices, still continued: the augmentation of them was an old remedy, the failure of schemes for the purpose an old disappointment. Even the Act in relation to this matter in 1676, had been carried into only partial execution; and, therefore, many of the difficulties, so long complained of by the clergy, still remained. Consequently, Sancroft, in the year 1680, sent an appeal to the Bishops of his province, urging strongly the application of the Act; and requiring every Bishop, Dean, and Archdeacon to send particulars of all the augmentations made by them or their predecessors.[21] What he recommended to others he practised himself, for he liberally improved many of the livings in his gift. The chronic disease of the Church forced itself on the Archbishop’s attention: many unsuitable persons being appointed to benefices, and private advantage taking precedence of public welfare, among the motives deciding the administration of patronage. As a cure to some extent, Charles issued a warrant, constituting the Archbishop, the Bishop of London, and four laymen proper and competent judges of men deserving to be preferred, and forbidding the Secretary of State to apply to the Royal fountain of favour, for the bestowment of ecclesiastical preferments, without first communicating with this council of reference.[22] What share Sancroft had in the origin or the execution of the plan we do not know; but the object was one which, from what we learn of his character, would commend itself to his judgment. The practice of simony continued, and an Archdeacon of Lincoln, convicted of that offence in the ecclesiastical court, petitioned the King for pardon;—upon the petition being referred to Sancroft, he replied that the crime of which the man had been convicted, was “a pestilence that walketh in darkness,” and that if he were saved from punishment, the markets of Simon Magus would be more frequented than ever.[23]
TEMPLE.
After the impeachment and imprisonment of the Earl of Danby, in spite of Royal endeavours to screen him, His Majesty being then left without an adviser, sent for Sir William Temple, and appointed him Secretary of State, in the room of Coventry. This ingenious politician proposed, that there should be a Council, consisting of thirty members, fifteen of them to be Officers of State, chosen by the King; the other fifteen, popular leaders of the two Houses. The idea was, to blend the Government and the Opposition together, or, rather, to prevent the existence of any opposition at all.[24] The Council of statesmen formed on this model included, on the one hand, Essex, Sunderland, and Halifax—men attached to Court interests, in favour with the King, and suspected by the people; and on the other hand, the Earl of Shaftesbury, a leading spirit of the old Cabal, now an extreme opponent of the Court policy, and Lord William Russell, an eminently zealous Protestant, and popular Member of the House of Commons. The last two names are interwoven from the beginning, with the popular plan for setting aside the Duke of York—the first three Ministers being entirely opposed to it, and advocating the legitimate succession, with certain safeguards for the protection of Protestantism. This division of opinion in the Council reflected and magnified itself in the divisions of Parliament.
1679.
Parliament met in March. The King and such Ministers as agreed with him, proposed terms of compromise in reference to the succession. The Chancellor, in April, stated that His Majesty was willing to distinguish a Popish from a Protestant successor; and so to limit the authority of the latter in reference to the Church, that all benefices in the gift of the Crown should be conferred in such a manner as to ensure the appointment of pious and learned Protestants.[25] Other restrictions of a political kind were proposed, which, as Charles said, would “pare the nails” of a Popish King.
The Exclusion Bill was carried by the Commons in the month of May, but the effect was neutralized by a sudden prorogation of Parliament before the month had expired.[26] Parliament being dissolved by proclamation on the 12th of July, a new one was called for the following October.
DANGERFIELD’S PLOT.
The fourth Parliament of Charles II. met in October, 1679, and, after repeated prorogation, assembled for the despatch of business in October, 1680. Another informer just at that time rose to notoriety, whose name deserves to be coupled with that of Oates. Dangerfield is represented as a handsome young man, whom profligacy and debt brought within the walls of Newgate, where he was visited by a Roman Catholic woman named Cellier, one “who had a great share of wit, and was abandoned to lewdness.”[27] The man professed to become a convert to her religion, and, through the influence of his new friend with persons at Court, obtained an introduction to the Duke of York, into whose ears he poured tales of treason. This time a plot was attributed to the Presbyterians, who, according to Dangerfield, were raising forces to overthrow the Government. James gave the man twenty guineas; Charles ordered an additional reward of forty. The adventurer, finding his trade so gainful, determined to push his object further. He lodged an information at the Custom House against Colonel Mansel, a Presbyterian, whom he charged with being the quarter-master of the army of revolt; but the revenue officers, on searching his house, found not what they expected, but only a bundle of papers behind the bed. The papers were plainly treasonable; not less plainly did they bear signs of forgery. The accused traced home the infamous trick to the unprincipled informer. Dangerfield, once more committed to Newgate, not for debt, but for something worse, now changed his story, and declared that, at the instigation of Cellier and Lady Powis, who had become mixed up in the affair, he had engaged in a sham plot, as a cover for a real one. Though no Presbyterian conspiracy existed, there was, he affirmed, a Popish one, and a proof of the former being a fiction might be obtained from a bundle of papers secreted in a meal tub. The meal was searched, the papers were found; they demonstrated the artifice, and the trumpery contrivance has gained a place in history under the title of the “Meal Tub Plot.” Powis and Cellier were now, in their turn, imprisoned. The grand jury ignored the bill against the former, and the latter obtained an acquittal at the Old Bailey. Dangerfield received a pardon; yet, though all three at the time escaped the penalties of the law, Dangerfield subsequently received a cruel whipping for the crime of perjury.[28] This miserable creature has been represented either as a tool employed by the Catholics to retaliate upon the friends of Titus Oates, or as a tool employed by the friends of Titus Oates to decoy Catholics into an attempt at injuring the Presbyterians. The former is the Protestant, the latter the Catholic hypothesis. Neither of them seems satisfactory; the latter is almost incredible. At all events, every reader must see that tissues of lies were woven in those days as unaccountably and as plentifully as spiders’ webs in autumn nights.
1680.