8. The Dispensing Power. 1686.—Like his father, James liked to think that, when he broke the laws, he was acting legally, and he remembered that the Crown had, in former days, exercised a power of dispensing with the execution of the laws (see p. [604]). This power had, indeed, been questioned by the Parliament in 1673 (see p. [606]), but there was no statute or legal judgment declaring it to be forbidden by law. James now wanted to get a decision from the judges that he possessed the dispensing power, and when he found that four of the judges disagreed with him, he replaced them by four judges who would decide in his favour. Having thus packed the Bench, he procured the bringing of a collusive action against Sir Edward Hales, who, having been appointed an officer in the army, had, as a Catholic, refused to take the test. Hales produced a dispensation from the king, and, on June 21, 1686, the judges decided that such dispensations freed those who received them from the penalties imposed by any laws whatever.
9. The Ecclesiastical Commission. 1686.—James, in virtue of his dispensing power, had already authorised some clergymen of the Church of England, who had turned Roman Catholics, to retain their benefices. Obadiah Walker, the Master of University College, Oxford, became a Roman Catholic, set up a press for the printing of Roman Catholic tracts, and had mass celebrated openly in the college. Yet he was allowed to retain his post. Then the king appointed Massey, an avowed Roman Catholic, to the Deanery of Christchurch, and Parker, a secret Roman Catholic, to the Bishopric of Oxford. Naturally the clergy who retained the principles of the Church of England preached sermons warning their hearers against the errors of the Church of Rome. James ordered them to be silent, and directed Compton, Bishop of London, to suspend Sharp, the Dean of Norwich, for preaching against the Papal doctrines. As Compton refused to obey, James, on July 11, constituted an Ecclesiastical Commission Court, at the head of which was Jeffreys. It is true that the Court of High Commission had been abolished by a statute of the Long Parliament, but James argued that his father's court, having power to punish the laity as well as the clergy, could be abolished by Act of Parliament, whereas, a king being supreme governor of the Church, might provide for the punishment of the clergy alone, in any way that he thought fit, without taking account of Acts of Parliament. The first act of the new court was to suspend Compton for his refusal to suspend Sharp. James therefore had it in his power to stop the mouths of all the religious teachers in the realm.
10. Scotland and Ireland. 1686-1687.—In Scotland James insisted on a Parliamentary repeal of all laws imposing penalties on Roman Catholics. The Scottish Parliament, subservient as it had been to Charles II., having refused to comply with this demand, James dispensed with all these laws by his own authority, thereby making Scottish Episcopalians almost as sullen as Scottish Covenanters. In Ireland James had on his side the whole Catholic Celtic population, which complained of wrongs committed against their religion and property by the English colonists. James determined to redress these wrongs. In February, 1687, he sent over to Ireland as Lord Deputy the Earl of Tyrconnel, whose character was low, and who had been known at Charles's Court as Lying Dick Talbot. He was, however, a Roman Catholic, and would carry out the king's will in Ireland without remorse.
11. The Fall of the Hydes. 1686-1687.—To make way for Tyrconnel, the former lord-lieutenant, Clarendon, the eldest son of the late Chancellor, was recalled from Ireland, his fall being preceded by that of his younger brother Rochester (see p. [627]). Rochester was devoted to the maintenance of the Royal power; but James told him that he must change his religion if he wished to keep his office, and on his refusal he was dismissed.
12. The Declaration of Indulgence. 1687.—The dismissal of Rochester was the strongest possible evidence that James's own spirit was intolerant. Yet he was driven, by the course which he had taken, into the adoption of the principle of toleration, and no doubt persuaded himself that he accepted toleration on its own merits. At first he had hoped to obtain favours for the Roman Catholics with the goodwill of the Church of England, whilst continuing the persecution of Dissenters. He now knew that this was impossible, and he therefore resolved to make friends of the Dissenters by pronouncing for a general toleration. He first had private interviews with the leading men in both Houses, in the hope that they would, if Parliament were re-assembled, assist in the repeal of all penal laws bearing on religion. These closetings, as they were called,[34] proving ineffectual, he issued, by his own authority, on April 4, 1687, a Declaration of Indulgence, suspending all laws against Roman Catholics and Dissenters alike, and giving permission to both to worship publicly. The result of the Declaration was not all that James desired. Many of the Dissenters, indeed, accepted their freedom joyfully. Most of them, however, dreaded a gift which seemed only intended to elevate the Roman Catholics, and opened their ears to the pleadings of the Churchmen, who now assured their old enemies that if they would have a little patience they should, in the next Parliament, have a toleration secured by law. This, argued the Churchmen, would be of far more use to them than one granted by the king, which would avail them nothing whenever the king died and was succeeded by his Protestant daughter, the Princess of Orange.