No course was too bold for James. To confer a high office in the Established Church on an avowed enemy of that Church was indeed a bold violation of the laws and of the royal word. The Deanery of Christchurch became vacant. It was the head of a Cathedral. John Massey, notoriously a member of the Church of Rome, and destitute of any other recommendation, was appointed. Soon an altar was decked at which mass was daily celebrated. To the Pope's Nuncio the king said that what had thus been done at Oxford should very soon be done at Cambridge.
The temper of the nation was such as might well make James hesitate. During some months discontent steadily and rapidly rose. The celebration of Roman Catholic worship had long been prohibited by Act of Parliament. During several generations no Roman Catholic clergyman had dared to exhibit himself in any public place with the badges of his office. Every Jesuit who set foot in this country was liable to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.
But all disguise was now thrown off. Roman Catholic chapels arose all over the land. A society of Benedictine monks was lodged in St. James's Palace. Quarrels broke out between Protestant and Romanist soldiers. Samuel Johnson, a clergyman of the Church of England, who had issued a tract entitled "A humble and hearty Appeal to all English Protestants in the Army," was flung into gaol. He was then flogged and degraded from the priesthood. But the zeal of the Anglican clergy displayed. They were Jed by a united Phalanx, in the van of which appeared a rank of steady and skillful veterans, Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Prideaux, Patrick, Tenison, Wake. Great numbers of controversial tracts against Popery were issued by these divines.
Scotland also rose in anger against the designs of the king, and if he had not been proof against all warning the excitement in that country would have sufficed to admonish him. On March 18, 1687, he took a momentous step. He informed the Privy Council that he had determined to prorogue Parliament till the end of November, and to grant, by his own authority, entire liberty of conscience to all his subjects. On April 4th appeared the memorable Declaration of Indulgence. In this document the king avowed that it was his earnest wish to see his people members of that Church to which he himself belonged. But since that could not be, he announced his intention to protect them in the free exercise of their religion. He authorised both Roman Catholics and Protestant Dissenters to perform their worship publicly.
That the Declaration was unconstitutional is universally agreed, for a monarch competent to issue such a document is nothing less than an absolute ruler. This was, in point of fact, the most audacious of all attacks of the Stuarts on public freedom. The Anglican party was in amazement and terror, for it would now be exposed to the free attacks of its enemies on every side. And though Dissenters appeared to be allowed relief, what guarantee was there for the sincerity of the Court? It was notorious that James had been completely subjugated by the Jesuits, for only a few days before the publication of the Indulgence, that Order had been honoured with a new mark of his confidence, by appointing as his confessor an Englishman named Warner, a Jesuit renegade from the Anglican Church.
Petition of the Seven Bishops and their Trial
A meeting of bishops and other eminent divines was held at Lambeth Palace. The general feeling was that the king's Declaration ought not to be read in the churches. After long deliberation, preceded by solemn prayer, a petition embodying the general sense, was written by the Archbishop with his own hand. The king was assured that the Church still was, as she had ever been, faithful to the throne. But the Declaration was illegal, for Parliament had pronounced that the sovereign was not constitutionally competent to dispense with statutes in matters ecclesiastical. The Archbishop and six of his suffragans signed the petition. The six bishops crossed the river to Whitehall, but the Archbishop, who had long been forbidden the Court, did not accompany them. James directed that the bishops should be admitted to the royal presence, and they found him in very good humour, for he had heard from his tool Cartwright that they were disposed to obey the mandate, but wished to secure some little modifications in form.
After reading the petition the king's countenance grew dark and he exclaimed, "This is the standard of rebellion." In vain did the prelates emphasise their protests of loyalty. The king persisted in characterising their action as being rebellious. The bishops respectfully retired, and that evening the petition appeared in print, was laid out in the coffeehouses and was cried about the streets. Everywhere people rose from their beds, and came out to stop the hawkers, and the sale was so enormous that it was said the printer cleared a thousand pounds in a few hours by this penny broadside.
The London clergy disobeyed the royal order, for the Declaration was read in only four churches in the city, where there were about a hundred. For a short time the king stood aghast at the violence of the tempest he had raised, but Jeffreys maintained that the government would be disgraced if such transgressors as the seven bishops were suffered to escape with a mere reprimand. They were notified that they must appear before the king in Council. On June 8 they were examined by the Privy Council, the result being their committal to the Tower. From all parts of the country came the report that other prelates had signed similar petitions and that very few of the clergy throughout the land had obeyed the king. The public excitement in London was intense. While the bishops were before the Council a great multitude filled the region all round Whitehall, and when the Seven came forth under a guard, thousands fell on their knees and prayed aloud for the men who had confronted a tyrant inflamed with the bigotry of Mary.
The king learned with indignation that the soldiers were drinking the health of the prelates, and his officers told him that this could not be prevented. Before the day of trial the agitation spread to the furthest corners of the island. Scotland sent letters assuring the bishops of the sympathy of the Presbyterians, hostile though they were to prelacy. The people of Cornwall were greatly moved by the danger of Bishop Trelawney, and the peasants chanted a ballad of which the burden is still remembered: