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

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,

1685.

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 "a 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."

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 might 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."

His

Monmouth's

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 coronation. 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 adherent of the Church of England, and his rebellion rebellion. 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 Monmouth as a deliverer. 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 still 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,

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

In prison and on the

alike the enemies of the bastard duke. 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.

The results

of the rebellion.

She

had sheltered a dissenting minister named Hickes, who had fled to her Hampshire house from Sedgmoor, and though there was no proof of any complicity or sympathy on her part with the rebellion, she was condemned and executed as a traitor. At the Revolution the attainder was set aside on the ground that "the verdict was injuriously extorted and procured by the menaces and violences and other illegal practices" of the Lord Chief Justice. The rebellion was made the occasion of searching for nonconformist ministers and suppressing conventicles. Lord Clarendon, the king's brother-in-law, wrote that he was assured at Coventry, 66 that there has not been a conventicle in this town for above a year, and that executing the law upon nonconformists in making them pay has brought them all to Church."

James now thought that he was secure on the throne and could proceed at once to action. Charles II. had long designed a reunion with Rome, and took money from France to prepare it; but he had so far as possible kept his project. secret. James was of another mould. He was obstinate and headstrong. It began to be said openly that all tests must be repealed; and the clergy, says Burnet, began to open their eyes. On November 9 Parliament reassembled, Alarm at the and the king informed them that in the necessary increase of the forces he had employed officers who had not complied with the provisions of the Test Act. House of Commons addressed the king in protest against his action, and Henry Compton, Bishop of London, moved in the House of Lords to appoint a day to take the king's speech into consideration. James in haste prorogued the Parliament. The temper of the nation was shown by the eagerness and generosity with which subscriptions were provided for the

king's action.

Protestantism.

sufferers by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes; National and no less by a marked revival of controversial "teaching. One of the first steps of James had been to prohibit preaching upon points of controversy. But no one heeded the order. The Romanists were working eagerly and openly, and the English clergy were not slow to reply. One of the most important disputes that occured was that between Dr. Thomas Tenison, rector of St. Martin's-in-theFields, and the head of the Jesuits then settled in the Savoy,