Tidings of what had happened rapidly spread, and excited all sorts of people, especially such as had religious sympathies with the new visitors. Devonshire traditions afford an idea of what was felt and done by Dissenters. A lady, worshipping in a meeting-house at Totnes, in commemoration of the discovery of Gunpowder Plot, when she learnt that the Prince had reached the neighbouring bay, immediately hastened, in company with another like-spirited matron, to meet His Highness at Brixham, who “shook hands with them, and gave them a parcel of his Proclamations to distribute, which they did so industriously that not one was left in the family as a memorial of their adventure.”[46]
1688.
A story is also told that Roman Catholics were at the time eagerly expecting assistance from the French, and a priest with his friends, stationed on a watch-tower, having descried white flags on the men of war as they hove in sight, prepared an entertainment for the earnestly-desired guests, and proceeded to chant a Te Deum, in gratitude for their arrival. They were soon undeceived, and the fare provided for the French was enjoyed by the Dutch.[47]
The army next day marched on to Exeter, the officers, like the soldiers, wet to the skin, having neither change of raiment, nor food, nor horses, nor servants, nor beds—the baggage still remaining in the ships. But expressions of sympathy, perhaps timorously conveyed, cheered them somewhat on this dreary day; and stories are still circulated amongst the Nonconformist families of the neighbourhood, of ancestors who watched the landing, and spoke of “seeing the country people rolling apples down the hill-side to the soldiers.”[48]
THE CRISIS.
The progress was slow, and the stay at the Western capital long. Thomas Lamplugh, the Bishop who had approved of the Declaration and of the conduct of His Majesty’s servile Judges, showed his fidelity to James by rushing up to London, where he was rewarded with the Archiepiscopal throne of York. York had been left vacant for more than two years and a half, with the design, it was said, of being ultimately occupied by a Roman Catholic. A Popish Bishop had been settled there, with a title in partibus infidelium, whose crosier and utensils were seized after the landing of the Prince of Orange.[49]
The Dean of Exeter also fled in alarm, and His Highness took up his abode in the deserted Deanery. The Prebendaries refused to meet him, or to occupy their stalls, when he marched in military state through the western portal, well studded with statues of saints and kings; and proceeding up the nave, with its exquisite minstrels’ gallery, ascended the steps of the choir, passed under the beautiful screen, and took his seat on the Episcopal throne,—the ornamentation of which in ebonlike oak, without a single nail in the curious structure, so admirably contrasts with the pale arches and the vaulted roof. As soon as the chanting of the Te Deum had ceased, Burnet read His Highness’s Declaration, which proved a signal for such of the clergy and choristers as had ventured on being present, to quit the edifice. At the end of the reading the Doctor cried, “God save the Prince of Orange!” to which some of the congregation responded with a hearty Amen.
1688.
De Bostaquet, the French Huguenot, accustomed to the extreme and rigid simplicity of Protestant worship in his own country, was scandalized at what he witnessed at Exeter. He regarded the English service as retaining nearly all the externals of Popery—for such he counted the altar, and the great candles on each side, and the basin of silver-gilt between, and the Canons, in surplices and stoles, ranged in stalls on each side the nave, and the choir of little boys singing with charming voices. He was touched somewhat with the beauty of the music, but the sturdy and ultra-Reformer declared it was all opposed to the simplicity of the French reformed religion, and he confessed he was by no means edified with it.[50]
Burnet delivered a sermon on the following Sunday; and on the same day, Robert Ferguson, being refused by the Presbyterians the keys of the meeting-house in St. James Street, exclaimed, “I will take the kingdom of heaven by violence!” and calling for a hammer, broke open the door. Sword in hand he mounted the pulpit, and preached against the Papists from the 16th verse of the 94th Psalm: “Who will rise up for me against the evil doers?”[51]