XI

DEATH OF CHARLES II.

215

hortation. Nothing, for example, could be stronger or more pointed than Stillingfleet's sermon preached before

His

the king on February 24, 1675, and "printed by his character. Majesty's special command" on "Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." Very clear and plain indeed was the language, and it was not heeded at all. Sermons on Christian evidences and faith were equally common, and equally disregarded. Sheldon and Sancroft had both spoken clearly to him. Frampton had directly addressed him in a sermon, and Charles had told him, "that I cannot allow of." Ken had refused to give up his house to his mistress, Nell Gwyn, when she came with him to Winchester. There was no lack of warning and plain speaking: but Charles made a mock of all. At one moment he would gravely reprove Frampton for saying that atheism was tolerated at Court. At another he replied to Lord Halifax, who had told him that he was the head of his church," "that he did not desire to be the head of anything, for indeed he was of no church." His was a pitiable end; but men hoped there was a death-bed repentance.

66

the Church history of

Character of

his reign.

With the death of Charles II. the end of an epoch in the history of the English Church is distinctly marked. Protestant dissent had come to be clearly recognised as a fact in English religious life. The Church had passed through a fiery trial and had had time to reconsider the bases on which her reformation had been founded. Thus, with full deliberation she had reiterated her conviction that it was essential to the fulness of church life that the threefold ministry should be continued and reverently used and esteemed; and that only those could be her lawful ministers who had received Episcopal ordination. The Presbyterian theory of Church government had been thoroughly weighed and was rejected, and the Independent system had found even less favour. The established doctrines and laudable practices of the whole Catholic Church of Christ were adhered to. The English Church stood firm against the influence of Geneva or of Scotland. Was this an approximation towards the Roman position? Was there a prospect of reunion, or of submission? This was the question which the next reign was to solve.

AUTHORITIES.-State Papers, Domestic, in the Record Office; Guizot, Life of Monk, with the documents appended; Tanner MSS., in the Bodleian Library; Calamy, Abridgment of Baxter's Life; Burnet, History of his Life and Times, ed. Osmund Airy; Cardwell, Conferences; Sheldon MSS., in Bodleian Library; Dolben Papers; Clarendon Papers; Lathbury, History of Convocation; Lords' Journals, vol. xi.; Canmore's Journals, vol. viii. With regard to the revision of the Prayer-book there is a whole literature of investigation, history, and reprint, the results of which are usefully summarised in the History of the Prayer-book, by Procter and Frere (1901), additional note, pp. 204, 205; see also Cosin, Works, vol. v., and Correspondence. The original MS. of the Prayer-book as subscribed by Convocation was published in facsimile, 1891; Bishop Samuel Parker's Commentarii (translated as History of his own Time, by T. Newlin, 1727); Clarendon's Life; Salmon, Examination of Burnet (1724); D'Oyly, Life of Sancroft; Historical MSS. Commission, XIV Report, Appendix 10, part 2; Life of Robert Frampton, edited by Evans, 1876. On the Popish Plot, see The whole series of all that hath been transacted in the House of Peers concerning the Popish Plot, London, 1681, and a thorough examination in The Popish Plot, by John Pollock, 1903. The sermons quoted (which have not hitherto received the attention they deserve as showing the trend of popular opinion) are David's Deliverance and Thanksgiving, Sheldon, 1660; Healing the Hurts of the Nation, Gauden, 1660; Lex Ignea, Sancroft, 1666; Lamentation, Mourning, and Woe, Hardy, 1666; A Sermon before the King, February 24, 1675, Stillingfleet, 1675; The Legacy of the Right Reverend Father in God, Herbert, Lord Bishop of Hereford, to his Diocese, or a short determination of all controversies we have with the Papists, 1679; A Sermon preached to the House of Peers, Nov. 13, 1678, Sancroft, 1678. Among modern books, Perry, History of the Church of England; Plumptre, Life of Ken; Stoughton, Church of the Restoration; L. von Ranke, History of England chiefly in the Seventeenth Century; Foxcroft, Life of George Savile, Earl of Halifax.

CHAPTER XII

THE ROMAN PROJECT AND THE REVOLUTION

1685.

THE suspicion with which James had long been regarded seemed to disappear as soon as he became king. In the few words he spoke to his council when he took the The welcome oaths, he declared that "he would endeavour to to James II., maintain the government both in Church and State, as by law established, its principles being so firm for monarchy, and the members of it showing themselves so good and loyal subjects, that he would always take care to defend and support the Church of England." The words were written down, the king approved them, and they were circulated throughout the country, and received with an unbounded enthusiasm. Typical of the Church's relief was the address from the diocese of Bath and Wells. They had sown in tears, they said, and reaped in joy. James had replaced his brother as most tender nursing father to the Church and people of England," which, they added, "to our unspeakable consolation, does illustriously appear in that auspicious promise your Majesty has made, of protecting our established religion, the greatest concern we have in this world."

"a

The Church, indeed, felt that it deserved the king's support and favour. That the clergy had remained firm in adherence to the right of hereditary succession was unquestionably one of the chief causes of the failure of the Exclusion Bill. It aight well have seemed that James must know the strength of the Church and the wisdom of making no attacks upon her. But he was injudicious as well as conscientious, and it was not long before he showed that he was a Romanist heart

and soul, and eager to proselytise. The second Sunday after his accession he went in state to the Roman mass. When the Duke of Norfolk, who bore the sword of state before him, stopped at the door, James said: "My lord, your father would have gone farther." "Your Majesty's father would not have gone so far," was the duke's answer. Within a few days the publication of some papers warmly advocating the claims of the Roman Church, which were said to have been found in a strong box of the late king's, showed the new king's desire for the conversion of England. James, a few days later, repeated his promise, but with a significant warning to Archbishop Sancroft, and Compton, Bishop of London. "My lords, I will keep my word, and will undertake nothing against the religion established by law, assuming that you do your duty towards me; but if you fail therein you must not expect that I shall protect you. I shall readily find the means of attaining my ends without your help.”

Two months later, when the coronation was solemnised with maimed rites, there being no communion, the king's isolation from the national sympathies was again emphatically asserted. Yet when James met his first Parliament His he repeated his assurance of favour and defence of the Church. This was on May 19. In less than a month the king had to meet a rebellion against his throne. On June 11, 1685, the Duke of Monmouth landed at Lyme Regis. His supporters put him forward as a true

coronation.

rebellion.

adherent of the Church of England, and his rebellion Monmouth's as a crusade against Popery. But the king's speeches and declarations had for the time stilled all suspicions; and foremost among those who opposed the insurrectionary force was the old cavalier, Peter Mews, Bishop of Winchester, as stout a loyalist as he was firm in the church principles of Laud. The clergy to a man refused to accept His troops, when they were driven back on Wells, spoilt the cathedral church of its lead roof, and did other damage. The chapter book, under date of July 1, 1685, thus records the sad work: "The civil war sti!! grows. This cathedral church has suffered very grievously from the rebel fanatics, who have this very morning laid hands upon the furniture thereof, have almost utterly destroyed the organ,

Monmouth as a deliverer.

11

XII

MONMOUTH'S REBELLION

219

and turned the sacred building into a stable for horses." It seemed to the clergy as if a Puritan rebellion had come again. But it did not last long. Within a month its leader was a prisoner, and on July 15 he was beheaded on Tower Hill.

From the ecclesiastical point of view there are many curious illustrations in the insurrection of contemporary Church life. Monmouth, as was natural in the case of a man of life so notoriously profligate, conspicuously failed to win the support, at any stage of his ambitious career, of prominent churchmen. He posed as a Protestant champion, received a Bible from the little maids of Taunton, and was always very scrupulous in going to church. But his religion went no further. He was declared to have preached during his last campaign, but he assured Tenison of the contrary: “No,' said the Duke, 'I never preached; nobody preached but Ferguson, and he very foolishly many times. That man,' says he, 'is a bloody villain.””

The Ferguson in question was a hack writer, who had been turned out of his living for nonconformity, and was a plotter of base type. In fact, though Monmouth at the last claimed to be a defender of the Church of England, his career did not support the claim. When he visited Chester in 1682, the mob who favoured him signalised their affection by breaking into the cathedral church, destroying the windows, mutilating the monuments and the font, and tearing up the vestments, completing their entertainment by drinking damnation to the king and the Duke of York. When at Chichester the preacher took for his text, "For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft," etc. (1 Sam. xv. 23), Monmouth in haste departed from the unwelcome and appropriate discourse. Church and king were

alike the enemies of the bastard duke. In prison and on the scaffold Ken and others endeavoured to make him acknowledge his sin in taking up arms against the sovereign, but he would not answer them according to their wish. That they at least were consistent was to be proved before long. Congratulatory addresses poured in from every side; and Jeffreys brutally executed the king's vengeance on the deluded rebels. Alice Lisle, the widow of a regicide and member of Cromwell's house of lords, was one of those who suffered in the bitter persecution. She

The results

of the rebellion.