yer had been deeply concerned in some of the harshest and most unjustifiable prosecutions of that age; and the Whigs abhorred him as a man stained with the blood of Russell and Sidney: but on this occasion he showed no want of honesty or of resolution. "Sir," said he, "this is not merely to dispense with a statute; it is to annul the whole statute law from the accession of Elizabeth to this day. I dare not do it; and I implore your majesty to consider whether such an attack upon the rights of the Church be in accordance with your late gracious promises." * Sawyer would have been instantly dismissed, as Finch had been, if the government could have found a successor: but this was no easy matter. It was necessary for the protection of the rights of the crown that one at least of the crown lawyers should be a man of learning, ability, and experience; and no such man was willing to defend the dispensing power. The attorney-general was therefore permitted to retain his place during some months. Thomas Powis, an insignificant man, who had no qualification for high employment except servility, was appointed solicitor. The question was Sir Edward Hales, a Sir The preliminary arrangements were now complete. There was a solicitor-generat to argue for the dispensing power, and twelve judges to decide in favor of it. therefore speedily brought to a hearing. gentleman of Kent, had been converted to Popery in days. when it was not safe for any man of note openly to declare himself a Papist. He had kept his secret, and, when questioned, had affirmed that he was a Protestant with a solemnity which did little credit to his principles. When James had ascended the throne, disguise was no longer necessary. Edward publicly apostatized, and was rewarded with the command of a regiment of foot. He had held his commission more than three months without taking the sacrament. He was therefore liable to a penalty of five hundred pounds, which an informer might recover by action of debt. A menial servant was employed to bring a suit for this sum in the Court of King's Bench. Sir Edward did not dispute the facts alleged against him, but pleaded that he had letters patent authorizing him to hold his commission notwithstanding the Test Act. The plaintiff demurred, that is to say, admitted Sir Edward's plea to be true in fact, but denied that it was a sufficient anThus was raised a simple issue of law to be decided swer. Roresby's Memoirs. by the court. A barrister, who was notoriously a tool of the government, appeared for the mock plaintiff, and made some fecble objections to the defendant's plea. The new solicitorgeneral replied. The attorney-general took no part in the proceedings. Judgment was given by the lord chief justice, Sir Edward Herbert. He announced that he had submitted the question to all the judges, and that, in the opinion of eleven of them, the king might lawfully dispense with penal statutes in particular cases, and for special reasons of grave importance. The single dissentient, Baron Street, was not removed from his place. He was a man of morals so bad that his own relations shrank from him, and that the Prince of Orange, at the time of the Revolution, was advised not to see him. The character of Street makes it impossible to believe that he would have been more scrupulous than his brethren. The character of James makes it impossible to believe that a refractory baron of the Exchequer would have been permitted to retain his post. There can be no reasonable doubt that the dissenting judge was, like the plaintiff and the plaintiff's counsel, acting collusively. It was important that there should be a great preponderance of authority in favor of the dispensing power; yet it was important that the bench, which had been carefully packed for the occasion, should appear to be independent. One judge, therefore, the least respectable of the twelve, was permitted, or more probably comnianded, to give his voice against the prerogative. * The power which the courts of law had thus recognized was not suffered to lie idle. Within a month after the decision of the King's Bench had been pronounced, four Roman Catholic lords were sworn of the privy council. Two of these, Powis and Bellasyse, were of the moderate party, and probably took their seats with reluctance and with many sad forebodings. The other two, Arundell and Dover, had no such misgivings.t The dispensing power was, at the same time, employed for the purpose of enabling Roman Catholics to hold ecclesiastical preferment. The new solicitor readily drew the warrants in which Sawyer had refused to be concerned. One of these warrants was in favor of a wretch named Edward Sclater, who June 22 July 2 * See the account of the case in the Collection of State Trials; Citters, May 4, 1686; Evelyn's Diary, June 27; Luttrell's Diary, June 21. As to Street, see Clarendon's Diary, Dec. 27, ^£8. † London Gazette, July 19, 1686. . had two livings which he was determined to keep at all costs and through all changes. He administered the sacrament to his parishioners according to the rites of the Church of England on Palm Sunday, 1686. On Easter Sunday, only seven days later, he was at mass. The royal dispensation authorized him to retain the emoluments of his benefices. To the remonstrances of the patrons from whom he had received his preferment he replied in terms of insolent defiance, and, while the Roman Catholic cause prospered, put forth an absurd treatise in defence of his apostasy. But a very few weeks after the Revolution a great congregation assembled at St. Mary's, in the Savoy, to see him received again into the bosom of the Church which he had deserted. He read his recantation with tears flowing from his eyes, and pronounced a bitter invective against the Popish priests whose arts had seduced him.* Scarcely less infamous was the conduct of Obadiah Walker. He was an aged priest of the Church of England, and was well known in the University of Oxford as a man of learning. He had in the late reign been suspected of leaning towards Popery, but had outwardly conformed to the established religion, and had at length been chosen Master of University College. Soon after the accession of James, Walker determined to throw off the disguise which he had hitherto worn. He absented himself from the public worship of the Church of England, and, with some fellows and undergraduates whom he had perverted, heard mass daily in his own apartments. One of the first acts performed by the new solicitor-general was to draw up an instrument which authorized Walker and his proselytes to hold their benefices, notwithstanding their apostasy. Builders were immediately employed to turn two sets of rooms into an oratory. In a few weeks the Roman Catholic rites were publicly performed in University College. A Jesuit was quartered there as chaplain. A press was established there under royal license for the printing of Roman Catholic tracts. During two years and a half Walker continued to make war on Protestantism with all the rancor of a renegade; but when fortune turned he showed that ne wanted the courage of a * Sce the letters patent in Gutch's Collectanea Curiosa. The date is the third of May, 1636. Sclater's Consensus Veterum; Gee's reply, entitled Veteres Vindicati; Dr. Anthony Horneck's account of Mr. Sclater's recantation of the errors of Popery on the 5th of May, 1689; Dodd's Church History, part viii. book ii. art. 3. martyr. He was brought to the bar of the House of Commons, to answer for his conduct, and was base enough to protest that he had never changed his religion, that he had never cordially approved of the doctrines of the Church of Rome, and that he had never tried to bring any other person within the pale of that church. It was hardly worth while to violate the most sacred obligations of law and of plighted faith, for the purpose of making such converts as these.* In a short time the king went a step further. Sclater and Walker had only been permitted to keep, after they became Papists, the preferment which had been bestowed on them while they passed for Protestants. To confer a high office in the Established Church on an avowed enemy of that Church, was a far bolder violation of the laws and of the royal word. But no course was too bold for James. The deanery of Christchurch became vacant. That office was, both in dignity and in emolument, one of the highest in the University of Oxford. The dean was charged with the government of a greater number of youths of high connections and of great hopes than could then be found in any other college. He was also the head of a cathedral. In both characters it was necessary that he should be a member of the Church of England. Nevertheless John Massey, who was notoriously a member of the Church of Rome, and who had not one single recommendation except that he was a member of the Church of Rome, was appointed by virtue of the dispensing power; and soon within the walls of Christchurch an altar was decked, at which mass was daily celebrated.t To the Nuncio the king said that what had been done at Oxford should very soon be done at Cambridge.‡ Yet even this was a small evil compared with that which Protestants had good ground to apprehend. It seemed but too probable that the whole government of the Anglican Church would shortly pass into the hands of her deadly enemies. Three important sees had lately become vacant, that of York, that of Chester, and that of Oxford. The bishopric of Oxford was given to Samuel Parker, a parasite, whose religion, if he had any religion, was that of Rome, and who called himself a Gutch's Collectanea Curiosa; Dodd, viii. 2, 3; Wood, Ath. Ox.; Ellis Correspondence,, Feb. 27, 1686; Commons' Journals, Oct. 26, 1689. † Gutch's Collectanea Curiosa; Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses; Dialogue between a Churchman and a Dissenter, 1689. Adda, July, 1686. Protestant only because he was encumbered with wife. "I wished," the king said to Adda, "to appoint an avowed Catholic; but the time is not come. Parker is well inclined to us; he is one of us in feeling; and by degrees he will bring round his clergy."* The bishopric of Chester, vacant by the death of John Pearson, a great name both in philology and in divinity, was bestowed on Thomas Cartwright, a still viler sycophant than Parker. The archbishopric of York remained several years vacant. As no good reason could be found for leaving so important a place unfilled, men suspected that the nomination was delayed only till the king could venture to place the mitre on the head of an avowed Papist. It is indeed highly probable that the Church of England was saved from this outrage by the good sense and good feeling of the pope. Without a special dispensation from Rome no Jesuit could be a bishop; and Innocent could not be induced to grant such a dispensation to Petre. That James did not even make any secret of his intention to exert vigorously and systematically for the destruction of the Established Church all the powers which he possessed as her head. He plainly said that, by a wise dispensation of Providence, the Act of Supremacy would be the means of healing the fatal breach which it had caused. Henry and Elizabeth had usurped a dominion which rightfully belonged to the holy see. dominion had, in the course of succession, descended to an orthodox prince, and would be held by him in trust for the holy see. He was authorized by law to repress spiritual abuses; and the first spiritual abuse which he would repress should be the liberty which the Anglican clergy assumed of defending their own religion and of attacking the doctrines of Rome.† But he was met by a great difficulty. The ecclesiastical supremacy which had devolved on him, was by no means the * Adda, July 30 1686. +"Ce prince m'a dit que Dieu avoit permis que toutes les loix qui ont été faites pour établir la réligion Protestante, et détruire la religion Catholique, servent présentement de fondement à ce qu'il veut faire pour l'établissement de la vraie réligion, et le mettent en droit d'exercer un pouvoir encore plus grand que celui qu'ont les rois Catholiques sur les affaires ecclésiastiques dans les autres pays."― Barillon, July 12, 1686. To Adda his majesty said, a few days later, "Che l'autorità concessale dal parlamento sopra l'Ecclesiastico senza alcun limite con fine contrario fosse adesso per servire al vantaggio de' medesimi Cattolici." July 23 Aug. 2 |