greater number of youths of high con- | probable that the Church of England nections and of great hopes than could was saved from this outrage solely by be found in any other college. He was the good sense and good feeling of the also the head of a Cathedral. In both Pope. Without a special dispensation characters it was necessary that he from Rome no Jesuit could be a Bishop; should be a member of the Church of and Innocent could not be induced to England. Nevertheless John Massey, grant such a dispensation to Petre. 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.* To the Nuncio the King said that what had been done at Oxford should very soon be done at Cambridge.† Disposal of rics. James to use his eccles as against James did not even make any secret of his intention to exert vigor- Resoluously and systematically for tion of the destruction of the Established Church all the powers which he possessed as her head. premacy He plainly said that, by a wise the dispensation of Providence, the Church. 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. That 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 authorised 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.* Yet even this was a small evil compared with that which Protestbishop- ants 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 deadliest 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 But he was met by a great difficulty. called himself a Protestant only because The ecclesiastical supremacy His diffihe was encumbered with a wife. "I which had devolved on him culties. wished," the King said to Adda, "to was by no means the same great and appoint an avowed Catholic: but the terrible prerogative which Elizabeth, time is not come. Parker is well in- James the First, and Charles the First clined to us: he is one of us in feel- had possessed. The enactment which ing; and by degrees he will bring annexed to the crown an almost boundround his clergy." The Bishopric of less visitatorial authority over the Chester, vacant by the death of John Church, though it had never been forPearson, a great name both in philo-mally repealed, had really lost a great logy and in divinity, was bestowed on part of its force. The substantive law Thomas Cartwright, a still viler syco- remained; but it remained unaccomphant 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 Wood's *Gutch's Collectanea Curiosa: Athenæ Oxonienses; Dialogue between Churchman and a Dissenter, 1689. panied by any formidable sanction or *"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 réfondement à ce qu'il veut faire pour l'étab ligion Catholique, servent présentement de lissement de la vraie réligion, et le mettent en droit d'exercer un pouvoir encore plus grand affaires ecclésiastiques dans les autres pays." que celui qu'ont les rois Catholiques sur les -Barillon, July 12. 1686. To Adda His Majesty said, a few days later, "Che l'autorità a concessale dal parlamento sopra l'Ecclesiastico senza alcun limite con fine contrario fosse adesso per servire al vantaggio de' medesimi July 23. Cattolici." Aug. 2. The statute, which restored to Elizabeth the spiritual dominion assumed by her father and resigned by her sister, contained a clause authorising the sovereign to constitute a tribunal which might investigate, reform, and punish all ecclesiastical delinquencies. Under the authority given by this clause the Court of High Commission was created. That court was, during many years, the terror of Nonconformists, and, under the harsh administration of Laud, became an object of fear and hatred even to those who most loved the Established Church. When the Long Parliament met, the High Commission was generally regarded as the most grievous of the many grievances under which the nation laboured. An Act was therefore somewhat hastily passed, which not only took away from the Crown the power of appointing visitors to superintend the Church, but abolished all ecclesiastical courts without distinction. by any efficient system of procedure, | mission with power to visit and govern and was therefore little more than a the Church of England.* But, if this dead letter. were so, it was to little purpose that the Act of Supremacy, in high sounding words, empowered him to amend what was amiss in that Church. Nothing but a machinery as stringent as that which the Long Parliament had destroyed could force the Anglican clergy to become his agents for the destruction of the Anglican doctrine and discipline. He therefore, as early as the month of April 1686, determined to revive the Court of High Commission. This design was not immediately executed. It encountered the opposition of every minister who was not devoted to France and to the Jesuits. It was regarded by lawyers as an outrageous violation of the law, and by Churchmen as a direct attack upon the Church. Perhaps the contest might have lasted longer, but for an event which wounded the pride and inflamed the rage of the King. He had, as supreme ordinary, put forth directions, charging the clergy of the establishment to abstain from touching in their discourses on controverted points of doctrine. Thus, while sermons in defence of the Roman Catholic religion were preached on every Sunday and holiday within the precincts of the royal palaces, the Church of the state, the Church of the great majority of the nation, was forbidden to explain and vindicate her own principles. The spirit of the whole clerical order rose against this injustice. William Sherlock, a divine of distinguished abilities, who had written with sharpness against Whigs and Dissenters, and had been rewarded by the government with the Mastership of the Temple and with a pension, was one of the first who incurred the royal displeasure. His pension was stopped; and he was severely reprimanded.† John Sharp, Dean of Norwich and Rector of Saint Giles's in the Fields, soon gave still greater After the Restoration, the Cavaliers who filled the House of Commons, zealous as they were for the prerogative, still remembered with bitterness the tyranny of the High Commission, and were by no means disposed to revive an institution so odious. They at the same time thought, and with reason, that the statute which had swept away all the courts Christian of the realm, without providing any substitute, was open to grave objection. They accordingly repealed that statute, with the exception of the part which related to the High Commission. Thus, the Archidiaconal Courts, the Consistory Courts, the Court of Arches, the Court of Peculiars, and the Court of Delegates were revived: but the enactment by which Elizabeth and her successors had been empowered to appoint Commissioners with visitatorial authority over the Church was not only not revived, but was declared, with the utmost strength of language, to be completely abrogated. It is therefore as clear as any point of constitutional law can be that James the Second was not competent to appoint a com answerably argued in a little contemporary † Letter from James to Clarendon, Feb. 18. 1685 Court of mission. offence. He was a man of learning | mark for the whole vengeance of the and fervent piety, a preacher of great government.* The King felt He creates fame, and an exemplary parish priest. more painfully than ever the a new In politics he was, like most of his want of that tremendous en- High Combrethren, a Tory, and had just been gine which had once coerced appointed one of the royal chaplains. refractory ecclesiastics. He probably He received an anonymous letter which knew that, for a few angry words purported to come from one of his uttered against his father's governparishioners, who had been staggered ment, Bishop Williams had been susby the arguments of Roman Catholic pended by the High Commission from theologians, and who was anxious to all ecclesiastical dignities and functions. be satisfied that the Church of England The design of reviving that formidable was a branch of the true Church of tribunal was pushed on more eagerly Christ. No divine, not utterly lost to than ever. In July, London was all sense of religious duty and of pro- alarmed by the news that the King had, fessional honour, could refuse to answer in direct defiance of two Acts of Parsuch a call. On the following Sunday | Sharp delivered an animated discourse against the high pretensions of the see of Rome. Some of his expressions were exaggerated, distorted, and carried by talebearers to Whitehall. It was falsely said that he had spoken with contumely of the theological disquisitions which had been found in the strong box of the late King, and which the present King had published. Compton, the Bishop of London, received orders from Sunderland to suspend Sharp till the royal pleasure should be further known. The Bishop was in great perplexity. His recent conduct in the House of Lords had given deep offence to the Court. Already his name had been struck out of the list of Privy Councillors. Already he had been dismissed from his office in the royal chapel. He was unwilling to give fresh provocation: but the act which he was directed to perform was a judicial act. He felt that it was unjust, and he was assured by the best advisers that it was also illegal, to inflict punishment without giving any opportunity for defence. He accordingly, in the humblest terms, represented his difficulties to the King, and privately requested Sharp not to appear in the pulpit for the present. Reasonable as were Compton's scruples, obsequious as were his apologies, James was in the Life of Sharp, by his son. greatly incensed. What insolence to plead either natural justice or positive law in opposition to an express command of the Sovereign! Sharp was forgotten. The Bishop became a liament drawn in the strongest terms, entrusted the whole government of the Church to seven Commissioners. The words in which the jurisdiction of these officers was described were loose, and might be stretched to almost any extent. All colleges and grammar schools, even those which had been founded by the liberality of private benefactors, were placed under the authority of the new board. All who depended for bread on situations in the Church or in academical institutions, from the Primate down to the youngest curate, from the Vicechancellors of Oxford and Cambridge down to the humblest pedagogue who taught Corderius, were subjected to this despotic tribunal. If any one of those many thousands was suspected of doing or saying anything distasteful to the government, the Commissioners might cite him before them. In their mode of dealing with him they were fettered by no rule. They were themselves at once prosecu tors and judges. The accused party was to be furnished with no copy of the charge. He was to be examined and crossexamined. If his answers did not give satisfaction, he was liable to be suspended from his office, to be ejected from it, to be pronounced in. *The best account of these transactions is Van Citters, 1686. June 29. July 21. 1686. Van Citters, July 16 name was not indeed struck out of the list of Privy Councillors: but, to the bitter mortification of the friends of the Church, he was no longer summoned on Council days. "If," said the King, "he is too sick or too busy to go to the Commission, it is a kindness to relieve him from attendance at Council." * capable of holding any preferment in | gies ill became the Primate of all Engfuture. If he were contumacious, he land at such a crisis; nor did they might be excommunicated, or, in other avert the royal displeasure. Sancroft's words, be deprived of all civil rights and imprisoned for life. He might also, at the discretion of the court, be loaded with all the costs of the proceeding by which he had been reduced to beggary. No appeal was given. The Commissioners were directed to execute their office notwithstanding any law which might be, or might seem to be, inconsistent with these regulations. Lastly, lest any person should doubt that it was intended to revive that terrible court from which the Long Parliament had freed the nation, the new Visitors were directed to use a seal bearing exactly the same device and the same superscription with the seal of the old High Commission.* The government found no similar difficulty with Nathaniel Crewe, Bishop of the great and opulent see of Durham, a man nobly born, and raised so high in his profession that he could scarcely wish to rise higher, but mean, vain, and cowardly. He had been made Dean of the Chapel Royal when the Bishop of London was banished from the palace. The honour of being an Ecclesiastical Commissioner turned Crewe's head. It was to no purpose that some of his friends represented to him the risk which he ran by sitting in an illegal tribunal. He was not ashamed to answer that he could not live out of the royal smile, and exultingly expressed his hope that his name would appear in history, a hope which has not been altogether disappointed.† The chief Commissioner was the Chancellor. His presence and assent were declared necessary to every proceeding. All men knew how unjustly, insolently, and barbarously he had acted in courts where he had been, to a certain extent, restrained by the known laws of England. It was, therefore, not difficult to foresee how he would conduct himself in a situation in which he was at entire liberty to make forms of proce- Thomas Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, dure and rules of evidence for himself. was the third clerical Commissioner. Of the other six Commissioners, He was a man to whose talents posterity three were prelates and three laymen. has scarcely done justice. Unhappily The name of Archbishop Sancroft stood for his fame, it has been usual to print first. But he was fully convinced that his verses in collections of the British the court was illegal, that all its judg- poets; and those who judge of him by ments would be null, and that by sit- his verses must consider him as a serting in it he should incur a serious vile imitator, who, without one spark responsibility. He therefore deter- of Cowley's admirable genius, mimicked mined not to comply with the royal whatever was least commendable in mandate. He did not, however, act on Cowley's manner: but those who are this occasion with that courage and acquainted with Sprat's prose writings sincerity which he showed when driven will form a very different estimate of to extremity two years later. He his powers. He was indeed a great begged to be excused on the plea of master of our language, and possessed business and ill-health. The other at once the eloquence of the preacher, members of the board, he added, were of the controversialist, and of the hismen of too much ability to need historian. His moral character might assistance. These disingenuous apolo- have passed with little censure had he *The device was a rose and crown. Before belonged to a less sacred profession; the device was the initial letter of the Sovereign's name; after it the letter R. Round the seal was this inscription, "Sigillum commissariorum regiæ majestatis ad causas ecclesiasticas." 66 for the worst that can be said of him | As to the Commission, I do not doubt is that he was indolent, luxurious, and that you have seen it. At all events worldly but such failings, though not you may see it in any coffeehouse for a commonly regarded as very heinous in penny." The insolence of the Chanmen of secular callings, are scandalous cellor's reply appears to have shocked in a prelate. The Archbishopric of the other Commissioners; and he was York was vacant: Sprat hoped to ob- forced to make some awkward apologies. tain it, and therefore accepted a seat at He then returned to the point from the ecclesiastical board: but he was too which he had started. This," he goodnatured a man to behave harshly; said, "is not a court in which written and he was too sensible a man not to charges are exhibited. Our proceedings know that he might at some future time are summary, and by word of mouth. be called to a serious account by a Parlia- The question is a plain one. Why did ment. He therefore, though he consented you not obey the King? With some to act, tried to do as little mischief, and difficulty Compton obtained a brief deto make as few enemies as possible.* lay, and the assistance of counsel. The three remaining Commissioners When the case had been heard, it was were the Lord Treasurer, the Lord evident to all men that the Bishop had President, and the Chief Justice of the done only what he was bound to do. King's Bench. Rochester, disapprov- The Treasurer, the Chief Justice, and ing and murmuring, consented to serve. Sprat were for acquittal. The King's Much as he had to endure at the Court, wrath was moved. It seemed that he could not bear to quit it. Much as his Ecclesiastical Commission would he loved the Church, he could not bring fail him as his Tory Parliament had himself to sacrifice for her sake his failed him. He offered Rochester a white staff, his patronage, his salary of simple choice, to pronounce the Bishop eight thousand pounds a year, and the guilty, or to quit the Treasury. Rofar larger indirect emoluments of his chester was base enough to yield. office. He excused his conduct to Compton was suspended from all others, and perhaps to himself, by spiritual functions; and the charge of pleading that, as à Commissioner, he his great diocese was committed to his might be able to prevent much evil, judges, Sprat and Crewe. He conand that, if he refused to act, some per- tinued, however, to reside in his palace son less attached to the Protestant and to receive his revenues; for it was religion would be found to fill the known that, had any attempt been vacant place. Sunderland was the re- made to deprive him of his temporapresentative of the Jesuitical cabal. lities, he would have put himself under Herbert's recent decision on the ques- the protection of the common law; and tion of the dispensing power seemed to Herbert himself declared that, at comprove that he would not flinch from any mon law, judgment must be given service which the King might require. against the crown. This consideration As soon as the Commission had been induced the King to pause. Only a opened, the Bishop of London few weeks had elapsed since he had ings was cited before the new tri-packed the courts of Westminster Hall the Bishop bunal. He appeared. "I de- in order to obtain a decision in favour of London. mand of you," said Jeffreys, of his dispensing power. He now "a direct and positive answer. Why did not you suspend Dr. Sharp?" Proceed against The Bishop requested a copy of the Commission, in order that he might know by what authority he was thus interrogated. "If you mean," said Jeffreys, "to dispute our authority, I shall take another course with you. * Burnet, i. 675. ii. 629.; Sprat's Letters to Dorset. found that, unless he packed them again, he should not be able to obtain a decision in favour of the proceedings of his Ecclesiastical Commission. He determined, therefore, to postpone for & short time the confiscation of the freehold property of refractory clergymen.* * Burnet, i. 677.; Barillon, Sept. 1686. The public proceedings are in the Collection of State Trials. |