KING WILLIAM BECOMES UNPOPULAR.
King William found it an easier task to unite the councils of Europe against the common enemy than to conciliate and preserve the affections of his own subjects, among whom he began visibly to decline in point of popularity. Many were dissatisfied with his measures; and a great number even of those who exerted themselves for his elevation had conceived a disgust from his personal deportment, which was very unsuitable to the manners and disposition of the English people. Instead of mingling with his nobility in social amusements and familiar conversation, he maintained a disagreeable reserve which had all the air of sullen pride; he seldom or never spoke to his courtiers or attendants, he spent his time chiefly in the closet retired from all communication; or among his troops in a camp he had formed at Hounslow; or in the exercise of hunting, to which he was immoderately addicted. This had been prescribed to him by physicians as necessary to improve his constitution, which was naturally weak, and by practice had become so habitual that he could not lay it aside. His ill health co-operating with his natural aversion to society, produced a peevishness which could not fail of being displeasing to those who were near his person: this was increased by the disputes in his cabinet, and the opposition of those who were professed enemies to his government, as well as by the alienation of his former friends. As he could not breathe without difficulty in the air of London, he resided chiefly at Hampton-court, and expended considerable sums in beautifying and enlarging that palace; he likewise purchased the house at Kensington of the earl of Nottingham; and such profusion in the beginning of an expensive war gave umbrage to the nation in general. Whether he was advised by his counsellors, or his own sagacity pointed out the expediency of conforming with the English humour, he now seemed to change his disposition, and in some measure adopt the manners of his predecessors. In imitation of Charles II. he resorted to the races at Newmarket; he accepted an invitation to visit Cambridge, where he behaved himself with remarkable affability to the members of the university; he afterwards dined with the lord-mayor of London, accepted the freedom of the city, and condescended so far as to become sovereign-master of the company of grocers.
A GOOD NUMBER OF THE CLERGY REFUSE TO TAKE THE OATHS.
While William thus endeavoured to remove the prejudices which had been conceived against his person, the period arrived which the parliament had prescribed for taking the oaths to the new government. Some individuals of the clergy sacrificed their benefices to their scruples of conscience, and absolutely refused to take oaths that were contrary to those they had already sworn in favour of their late sovereign. These were distinguished by the epithet of nonjurors: but their number bore a very small proportion to that of others, who took them with such reservations and distinctions as redounded very little to the honour of their integrity. Many of those who had been the warmest advocates for non-resistance and passive obedience, made no scruple of renouncing their allegiance to king James, and complying with the present act, after having declared that they took the oaths in no other sense than that of a peaceable submission to the powers that were. They even affirmed that the legislature itself had allowed the distinction between a king de facto and a king de jure, as they had dropped the word “rightful” when the form was under debate. They alleged that as prudence obliged them to conform to the letter of the oath, so conscience required them to give it their own interpretation. Nothing could be more infamous and of worse tendency than this practice of equivocating in the most sacred of all obligations. It introduced a general disregard of oaths, which hath been the source of universal perjury and corruption. Though this set of temporizers were bitterly upbraided both by the nonjurors and the papists, they all concurred in representing William as an enemy to the church; as a prince educated in the doctrines of Calvin, which he plainly espoused, by limiting his favour and preferment to such as were latitudinarians in religion, and by his abolishing episcopacy in Scotland. The presbyterians in that kingdom now tyrannized in their turn. They were headed by the earl of Crawford, a nobleman of a violent temper and strong prejudices. He was chosen president of the parliament by the interest of Melvil, and oppressed the episcopalians in such a manner that the greater part of them from resentment became well-wishers to king James. Every circumstance of the hardships they underwent was reported in England; and the earl of Clarendon, as well as the suspended bishops, circulated these particulars with great assiduity. The oaths being rejected by the archbishop of Canterbury, the bishops of Ely, Chichester, Bath and Wells, Peterborough and Gloucester, they were suspended from their functions, and threatened with deprivation. Lake of Chichester, being seized with a dangerous distemper, signed a solemn declaration, in which he professed his adherence to the doctrine of non-resistance and passive obedience, which he believed to be the distinguishing characteristic of the church of England. After his death this paper was published, industriously circulated, and extolled by the party as an inspired oracle pronounced by a martyr to religious truth and sincerity.
THE KING GRANTS A COMMISSION FOR REFORMING CHURCH DISCIPLINE.
All the clamour that was raised against the king could not divert him from prosecuting the scheme of comprehension. He granted a commission under the great seal to ten bishops and twenty dignitaries of the church, authorizing them to meet from time to time in the Jerusalem chamber, to prepare such alterations of the liturgy and the canons, and such proposals for the reformation of ecclesiastical courts as might most conduce to the good order, edification, and uniting of the church, and tend to reconcile all religious differences among the protestant subjects of the kingdom. A cry was immediately raised against this commission, as an ecclesiastical court illegal and dangerous. At their first meeting the authority of the commission was questioned by Sprat, bishop of Rochester, who retired in disgust, and was followed by Mew of Winchester, and the doctors Jane and Aldrich. These were averse to any alteration of the forms and constitution of the church in favour of an insolent and obstinate party, which ought to have been satisfied with the toleration they enjoyed. They observed that an attempt to make such alteration would divide the clergy, and bring the liturgy into disesteem with the people, as it would be a plain acknowledgment that it wanted correction. They thought they should violate the dignity of the church by condescending to make offers which the dissenters were at liberty to refuse; and they suspected some of their colleagues of a design to give up episcopal ordination—a step inconsistent with their honour, duty, oaths, and subscriptions.