William had ordered Burnet to secure the Papists from violence, thinking perhaps of the probable consequences of the third Declaration. He renewed the order after he had entered London; in consequence of it, passports were granted to priests wishing to leave the country; and two being imprisoned in Newgate, the busy ecclesiastical Minister of His Highness paid them a visit, and took upon himself to provide for their comfort. A little incident, recorded by Dr. Patrick, brings before us vividly the excitement amongst Churchmen at that critical period. “It was a very rainy night when Dr. Tenison and I being together, and discoursing in my parlour, in the little cloisters in Westminster, one knocked hard at the door. It being opened, in came the Bishop of St. Asaph; to whom I said, ‘What makes your Lordship come abroad in such weather, when the rain pours down as if heaven and earth would come together?’ To which he answered, ‘He had been at Lambeth, and was sent by the Bishops to wait upon the Prince, and know when they might all come and pay their duty to him.’ I asked if my Lord of Canterbury had agreed to it, together with the rest. He said, ‘Yea, he made some difficulty at the first, but consented at the last, and ordered him to go with that message.’”[76]
Whitehall, which, up to the flight of James, had been crowded by friends or time-servers, now became a desert; and St. James’s, which had been a desert, now became a rendezvous for courtiers of every kind. Those who held staves, keys, or other badges of office, laid them down; and the whole herd of seekers, expectants, and claimants jostled one another on the threshold of the house where the new master of England had taken up his abode. Clarendon went to Court instantly, but could not get near His Highness for the crowd of people.
THE CRISIS.
A clerical address appears to have been amongst the first, if not the very first, presented to him on his arrival. At noon, after the rainy night when the Bishop of St. Asaph knocked at a door in the little cloisters at Westminster, Dr. Paman, a domestic of the Archbishop of Canterbury, called on Dr. Patrick to inform him that the Prince had appointed three o’clock in the afternoon to receive the Bishops. “Will my Lord of Canterbury be with them?” asked Patrick. “Yes, yes,” was the reply. Whether an interview between the Prince and any Bishops did take place that day, or the messenger had mistaken the time, or the appointment had been altered, certain it is that the Archbishop did not go, and we have no particular account of the presentation of an address before the 21st.
On that occasion, Compton, Bishop of London, took the lead. Two days before, he and some of his clergy met to agree upon an address. There were present persons who desired the insertion of a passage to the effect that the Prince should “have respect to the King, and preserve the Church established by law;” and “one of considerable note refused to go, because these clauses were not inserted.” Certain Nonconformists heard what was going on, and requested they might unite with their Episcopal brethren. Compton complied, and on Friday morning, the 21st, when the address was to be presented, sixteen early risers left their homes and threaded their way through the dusky streets. “No more could be got together in due time that morning, for the Bishop was to make the address about 9 or 10 o’clock that day.” They deputed Howe, Fairclough, Stancliffe, and Mayo “to go with the conformable clergy (who numbered about 99) and the Bishop of London to attend the Prince.” Admitted to His Highness’s presence, the Bishop—a perfect courtier—conducted the interview with becoming grace, addressing him viva voce, and gratifying the Nonconformists by a special reference to them as brethren who differed on some minor matters, but in nothing substantial, and who fully concurred in the address presented, “at which words, the Prince took particular notice of the four Nonconformist ministers”—an incident which no doubt would give rise to some talk that memorable Christmas-time.
1688.
A large meeting of Presbyterian and Independent brethren was held just afterwards, to depute four of their number to wait on Compton, to thank him for his courtesy, and whilst they were considering this matter, “there were divers bundles of the King’s letters, containing the reasons of his withdrawing, delivered or thrown in amongst them by a stranger. Some bundles had particular directions on them.” The circumstance indicates the activity of James’ agents, and their idea that he had special claims on the Dissenters, who had taken advantage of his Indulgences. But, says the person who records the incident, “they are the more fortified hereby in their purpose, that they may cast off the imputation cast upon them by their enemies, as betrayers of the religion and laws of the kingdom, by complying with the Court.”[77] Other Nonconformists, who did not hear of the Bishops’ audience in sufficient time, presented a distinct address a few days afterwards, promising “the utmost endeavour, which in their stations they were capable of affording, for the promoting the excellent and most desirable ends for which His Highness had declared.”[78]
CHAPTER III.
England was now in the midst of a revolution. What was its character? Its ecclesiastical aspects alone demand our attention, but these are so closely connected with others, that we shall be compelled to look at them all together. Politics and religion were inextricably interwoven. They had been so in earlier changes. Changes mainly religious were also political; changes mainly political were also religious. Lollardism wrought a vast religious revolution, but though it principally aimed at purifying the Church, it sought, as a means to that end, the amendment of the State. The Reformation was pre-eminently an ecclesiastical movement, but its political entanglements are obvious to everybody. The Civil Wars were struggles for civil liberty—for the rights of the people against the oppression of the Crown; but the religious spirit, at first hidden in the heart of those conflicts, was so strong, and soon burst out in other forms so conspicuously, that the Commonwealth of England and the Protectorate of Cromwell became entangled with ecclesiastical and theological controversies. The Revolution of 1688 came in the wake of the Puritan movement.
1688.