The new convocation was opened on the 31st of December following. The Latin service was read by the Bishop of Oxford, and the sermon preached by the Dean of St Paul’s. Dr Woodward was elected prolocutor, and two months were occupied in the same angry discussions, respecting the prerogatives of the two houses, which had disgraced the convocation previous. The simple point contended for was this: the Lower House claimed to be on the same footing as to the Upper House that the Commons in Parliament are in regard to the House of Lords; that is, to adjourn by their own authority, apart from the Upper House, where, and to such time, as they should think proper. This the Upper House resisted, maintaining that the ancient usage was for the archbishop to adjourn both houses together, and to the same time. This was the only matter discussed by the convocation which met on December 31, 1701; and this was not settled, for, in the midst of the discussion, King William died on the 8th of March 1702, and thus those ecclesiastical brawlers were sent home to attend to more sacred work in their respective churches.
These disreputable contentions continued for many years after this. “The governing men in the Lower House,” says Burnet, “were headstrong and factious, and designed to force themselves into preferment by the noise they made, and by the ill-humour which they endeavoured to spread among the clergy, who were generally soured by their proceedings.”
It is impossible to say what part Samuel Wesley took in these convocation debates; and, in the absence of information, the reader is left to guess.
We conclude the present chapter with a brief review of the state of things during the reign of King William’s successor, Queen Anne. This will clear the way for further details respecting Mr Wesley.
Anne was proclaimed Queen of England in March 1702. She was in the thirty-eighth year of her age, but was as much under the tutelage of Lord and Lady Marlborough as if she had been a girl of fifteen, or of still tenderer years. Three days after her accession, Marlborough was decorated with the order of the garter, and very soon obtained the entire command of the English army. His countess was made groom of the stole and mistress of the robes, and was intrusted with the management of the privy purse. His two daughters were nominated ladies of the bedchamber; and the father-in-law of one of these ladies, the Earl of Sunderland, obtained the renewal of a pension of £2000, which had been granted him by King William. Marlborough’s influence, in the court of England was omnipotent.[[155]]
The Queen, unlike her predecessor King William, was a most bigoted Tory. From her infancy she had imbibed unconquerable prejudices against the Whigs; and looked upon them all not only as Republicans, who hated the very shadow of regal authority, but as implacable enemies to the Church of England. Hence she lost no opportunity of filling up offices of State with her own partisans and friends, and, in a short time, the Whigs of King William were displaced, and the Tories of Queen Anne took their posts.[[156]] All this had an influence on the nation in general. The people began to change their sentiments, and persons of all ranks began to argue in favour of strict hereditary succession, divine right, and non-resistance to the regal power.
“Nature,” says Macaulay, “had made Queen Anne a bigot. Such was the constitution of her mind, that, to the religion of her nursery she could not but adhere, without examination and without doubt, till she was laid in her coffin. In the court of her father she had been deaf to all that could be urged in favour of transubstantiation and auricular confession. In the court of her brother she was equally deaf to all that could be urged in favour of a general union among Protestants. This slowness and obstinacy made her important. It was a great thing to be the only member of the Royal family who regarded Papists and Presbyterians with an impartial aversion.”
Soon after the Queen’s accession there was a parliamentary election, and the choice went generally in favour of those who were friends to the Church and monarchy. The House of Commons was now ready, as well as her Majesty’s chief ministers, to concur in her designs for the suppression of Dissenters, and for the aggrandisement of the Established Church. The House of Lords, however, had been so remodelled, in the reign of King William, that there was only a minority of its members in favour of the Queen’s principles and projects, and hence ecclesiastical measures, which passed the Lower House with acclamations, met in the Upper House with opposition and defeat.
One of the first measures of the new parliament was the “Occasional Conformity Bill,” the real object of which was to render null the Toleration Act, by providing that all who took the sacrament and the test, as qualifications for office, and afterwards went to the meetings of Dissenters, should be disabled for holding public offices, and should be fined £100, and £5 additional for every day that such person or persons continued in public office after being present at such Dissenting meetings. The Queen’s Tories in the House of Commons carried the bill with a triumphant majority; but, in the House of Lords, King William’s bishops stoutly opposed the measure, and, despite the influence of Marlborough, succeeded in its rejection. When parliament broke up, the Queen told its members that she hoped such of her subjects as had “the misfortune to dissent from the Church of England would rest secure and satisfied in the Act of Toleration, which she was firmly resolved to maintain;” and that those who had the “happiness and advantage to be of our Church might rest assured that she would make it her particular care to encourage and maintain the Church in all its just rights and privileges, and so transmit it securely settled to posterity.”[[157]]
When parliament re-assembled, in 1703, the rejected “Occasional Conformity Bill” was again brought into the House of Commons, and passed without any considerable opposition, but was again rejected in the House of Lords.