1689.
What the thoughts of the Archbishop were just then with regard to Dissenters, it is impossible to say. It is otherwise respecting his opinion upon another point.
All Protestants, high and low, had united for some months in one thing—the desire for a Revolution which should put a stop to the reign of prerogative, and place the liberties of the country upon a legal basis. But what exactly was the Revolution to be? Who was to be Ruler in the room of James? As to this pressing subject, opinions ran in divergent lines. The Archbishop, suffering from ill-health, worried by distractions around him, shut himself up in his Palace that cold Christmas-time, and covered closely, with his own neat hand, twenty-five pages of paper, from which we learn how he looked at the politics of the hour. Gazing at the engravings taken from his portrait in Lambeth Palace, we see him—with his simple, honest face, and a close black cap, such as gives the wearer a Puritan look, but for a pair of lawn sleeves sometimes worn—industriously putting down the pros and cons of the puzzle.
CHARACTER OF THE REVOLUTION.
The King is gone. The Government is without a pilot. The captain of a foreign force is at the head of affairs. How is the Government to be settled legally and securely? Shall the commander of the foreign force be declared King, and solemnly crowned? Shall the next heir—the Princess Mary (the Prince of Wales is not mentioned)—be Queen, her husband acquiring an interest in the government through her right? or shall the King be declared incapable of personal government, the commander being made Custos Regni, who shall administer affairs in the King’s name? “I am clearly of opinion,” writes the perplexed critic, “that the last way is the best, and that a settlement cannot be made so justifiable and lasting any other way.”[85] We cannot proceed through the prolix dissertation in which Sancroft endeavours to support his conclusion. Every word proves his simplicity and conscientiousness, but a weaker set of reasons, and a set of reasons more pedantically expressed, one rarely meets with. Both the moral and intellectual sides of the man’s character are apparent throughout. But for the theory of the divine right of kings, and the subject’s duty of passive obedience, which acted as a spell upon his mind, it would be impossible to conceive how a person of ordinary intelligence could advocate such a scheme as he did. Before long it must have been found unmanageable, leading to a second Revolution. While professedly concocted for the purpose of maintaining James’ kingly rights, it stripped him of all power; and curiously enough, as appears on a moment’s reflection, it is open to precisely the objections which had been brought against the Puritan Commonwealth’s-men, who administered government against the King in the King’s own name. To call James sovereign, with William as Custos Regni, was to use words in the way Pym and Hampden and Cromwell had done. What makes Sancroft’s conduct the more inconsistent is, that he and his party supported the Act of Uniformity, which required the Clergy to abhor that traitorous position of taking arms by the King’s authority against the King’s person, or against those commissioned by him. Must not William have done this, if Sancroft’s advice had been adopted? Must he not have defended his Regency by force against the nominal Monarch, who would have regarded that Regency as a flagrant usurpation?
1689.
The Archbishop anxiously consulted with some of the Bishops of his province touching this subject, and when the meetings became publicly known, they received the name of the Lambeth, or Holy Jacobite Club.[86] They did not all agree. Four of them went home one day from Lambeth, in the coach of Turner, Bishop of Ely, deploring they should disagree in anything, and especially in such a thing as that which all the world must needs observe. Turner wrote immediately afterwards to the Primate, asking him to draw up propositions against deposition and election, or anything else which would break the succession, because he was better versed than his brethren in canons and statutes, out of which the propositions ought to be drawn. Ken, he said, had left a draft with him, which might facilitate a completion of the task. The afternoon of the same day, Turner was to hold a meeting in Ely House, at which Patrick, Tenison, Sherlock, Scott, and Burnet were to be present, as well as two Bishops—St. Asaph and Peterborough. These men were of diverse opinions; how they got on together we do not know, but it appears some underhand work occurred in reference to James on the part of the Bishop of Ely. He enclosed, in his letter to Lambeth, a paper to be kept very private, of which he says, it “may be published one day, to show we have not been wanting faithfully to serve a hard master in his extremity; and for the present it will be proof enough to your Grace, that although I have made some steps, which you could not, towards our new masters, I did it purely to serve our old one, and preserve the public.”[87] At any rate, Sancroft appears more straightforward in this business than some of his brethren.
CHARACTER OF THE REVOLUTION.
Clarendon and Evelyn met at Lambeth Palace the Bishops of St. Asaph, Ely, Bath and Wells, Peterborough, and Chichester. They prayed, dined, and discoursed together. Outside, some persons were disposed to have the Princess proclaimed Queen without hesitation; others inclined to a Regency; a Tory party wished to invite the King back upon conditions; Republicans preferred to have the Prince of Orange constituted an English Stadtholder; and the Popish party simply aimed at throwing the whole country into confusion, with the hope of something springing out of it to serve their ends. Evelyn records that he saw nothing of this variety of objects in the assembly of Bishops, who were unanimous for a Regency, and for suffering public matters to proceed in the name of the King.[88] Such perfect unanimity, however, as Evelyn supposed, could not have existed if Clarendon be right, who says he feared the Bishop of St. Asaph had been wheedled by Burnet into supporting the transfer of the Crown, and would be induced to make the King’s going away a cession—a word Burnet fondly used.[89]
1689.