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that beloved Church was receiving | The court admitted them to bail

from the king, whose duty it was to protect her, he anticipated no very great amelioration of them from a foreigner whose belief varied between deism and fatalism.

The imprisonment of the bishops only lasted seven days. They were removed from the Tower, on Friday, June 15th, by a writ of habeas corpus, to the Court of King's Bench, being brought thither by the lieutenant of the Tower about eleven o'clock. They were received with great respect by the Bench, and immediately accommodated with chairs, a civility without precedent in cases where the Crown prosecuted. The information against them charged William, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the other six bishops, with consulting and conspiring with one another to diminish the royal authority, prerogative, and power, by maliciously and scandalously fabricating and writing, under the pretence of a petition, a pernicious and seditious libel, and causing it to be published, in manifest contempt of the king and against his peace.

The Archbishop stood up, and offered a paper to the court, containing a plea on behalf of himself and the other six, that they should not be compelled to answer to the charge at that time, but be allowed sufficient time to prepare their defence. This request, though contrary to the practice of the court, was granted, and the attorneygeneral gave notice that their trial would come on that day fortnight.

on their own recognisances, which they did not then refuse to give. The Archbishop was bound to appear under a penalty of £200, and each of the bishops in £100. They were then permitted to return to their own homes. They were received by the crowd outside the court with rapturous acclamations, bonfires were made in the streets at night, and enthusiastic demonstrations of popular rejoicing continued till morning.

Short as the imprisonment of Sancroft and the six bishops had been, it was productive of the most disastrous consequences to James II., by producing an irreconcilable feud between him and the Church, at that time so dear to the people of England. It was the more ill-judged on his part, because it deprived the birth of his son-which occurred two days after their arrest-of the most important and unquestionable of witnesses, the Archbishop of Canterbury; for if Sancroft had been present on that occasion, and deposed that he was in the chamber when the prince was born, no one would have dared to impugn his testimony. As it was, the Orange faction took occasion to convert his enforced absence into a presumptive evidence that a spurious child had been imposed on the nation.

The trial of the seven bishops came on at the appointed time, June 29th. Westminster Hall and all its approaches were thronged with anxious spectators. The

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for morning prayers. The venerable primate extricated himself from the ovations of the excited populace by entering the Chapel Royal at Whitehall, attended by the six bishops who had been imprisoned, tried, and acquitted with him. They now united with him in offering up their prayers, praises, and thanksgivings for the mercies lately accorded to them. The portion of Scripture for the day, substituted for the epistle, was part of the twelfth chapter of Acts, recording Peter's miraculous deliverance from prison. The acclamations of the people continued all day, and were prolonged through the night.

bishops, when they entered, were | day, and the bells were chiming accompanied by upwards of thirty gentlemen of the highest rank. The trial lasted the whole day. The jury, being unable to agree, were locked up during the night, without fire, candle, or food, to consider their verdict. At six in the morning they sent word to the Lord Chief-Justice they were agreed. He and the other judges accordingly took their places on the bench, and at ten o'clock the aged primate, who with his fellow prisoners had waited in a state of trying uncertainty all night, were brought into court. When the jury, through their foreman, Sir Roger Langley, returned the verdict of "Not Guilty," the Marquis of Halifax, waving his hat over his head, cried, "Huzza!" The lords and gentlemen took up the shout from him. In an instant it filled the vast hall, and was repeated by the crowds waiting in Palace Yard and round Westminster Abbey, from whence, like the roll and roar of thunder, it was carried in and through the city of London, and thence, as fast as it could fly, over the whole kingdom.

Surrounded by gratulating friends, and followed by shouting thousands and tens of thousands, the emancipated prelates left Westminster Hall. It was St. Peter's

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Illuminations in those days were chiefly done by vast voluntary bonfires. The Lord Mayor did all he could to suppress them, but in vain. The window illuminations were generally in the form of seven golden candlesticks, of which the longest, in the middle, represented Archbishop Sancroft, the six surrounding, the bishops.

A large silver medal was designed and struck on the occasion, having a half-length portrait of Archbishop Sancroft in the centre, and those of the six bishops associated with him in his imprisonment and trial grouped round him.

THE FALL OF JAMES II.

(Thierry's Ten Years of Historical Studies.)

A.D. 1688.

THE sudden birth of a son of James II. opened the war and hurried on the conflict. Messages were immediately exchanged between the refugees in Holland and the malcontents in England; men were enlisted, arms prepared. It was this event which in 1688 brought about the catastrophe of the revolution which had been hatching during the last five years.

James persisted in his carelessness; above all, he was far from suspecting the Prince of Orange, whose friendship for the English exiles appeared to him to be only a matter of religious sympathy. Such was his attitude when a dispatch from his minister at the Hague suddenly announced to him that great preparations were being made in all the Dutch ports for an invasion of England. At the reading of this he grew pale; the paper fell from his hands; he understood for the first time his danger and his helplessness. He called the people to arms; the people remained unmoved by his summons; while the lords, the

gentry, the bishops, the pensioners of his own treasury, were enrolling themselves for the service of his rival.

William, delayed for some time by a contrary wind, disembarked on the 5th September 1688 at | Torbay, in the county of Devon. The shore was covered by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, curiously gazing on these vessels and these soldiers; they remained silent, without either anger or rejoicing, like people who watch the preparations for a combat which does not concern them. The enemy's army directed its march towards Exeter, and published its manifestoes. In them much was said of the interests of Protestantism, a little of the interests of liberty, and, above all, it was endeavoured to inculcate the persuasion that the king's newlyborn son was a supposititious child. These manifestoes were read, but no citizen rose in arms. For nine whole days William advanced without meeting either friends or enemies. But soon friends came

his enemies kept drawing near. In place of advancing he retreated, and retired on London. At the first halt made by the royal army on its retreat, Anne, the king's daughter, and his son-in-law, George of Denmark, left his camp and presented themselves in that of his adversary. At the news of this he fell into dejection, and despaired of his own cause, thus repudiated even by his children. He made William an offer to capitulate; William refused to receive the bearer of this message. Then James II., uncertain of his rival's projects, and in fear of his life, threw the great seal into the Thames, and fled towards the coast, to make sure his escape. The royal troops dispersed, and the other army advanced without opposition.

to him in crowds; the great per- | neither be active nor passive, and sonages of the Opposition, military officers, all the nobility of the counties of Devon and Somerset. In the neighbouring counties the same classes took up arms; articles of association between them and the prince were solemnly entered into. The governors of towns hung out his standard; enlistments were made in virtue of his commission; the king's officers deserted to him with their men. All who got their living from the government, all for whom a change of sovereign would be either an immense gain or a loss of everything, were agitated throughout the whole of England; but those whose existence owed nothing to the powers of state were tranquil; the army of the invaders had only won over a small number of such, and the ranks of the other army were composed of militia assembled by force.

The king, however, kept advancing, that he might not perish without a struggle. At every step of his march fresh desertions diminished his forces, and to every order he gave, his officers replied by murmurs, reproaching him with his bad luck, which put their places in danger. Those upon whom he had chiefly heaped favours were least pleased to find themselves in his company, eager as they were to obtain from his rival the confirmation of what they had already acquired. There was no one in whom James II. could trust. Not being able to come to any resolution of himself, he durst

But the peers and ministers of the Crown who were still in London, considered that the citizens, seeing the king gone and the prince still at a distance, might think of themselves, and make some effort for their liberty, which would complicate the war. Το prevent this danger, which threatened their places and dignities, and which, by an ingenious transposition, they called the danger of the city, they made haste to inform the Prince of Orange that his competitor had fled, and that he must quicken his march; they also sent orders to the commanders of the disbanded troops; these troops were brought together again, and at the very time that they were being so collected, the lords turned

the rumour of their dispersion to account, in troubling the citizens' minds by a salutary alarm which might distract them from all thought of independence. They caused it to be given out that the Papists and the Irish of the royal army were massacring the Protestants in all directions. In a few days this false news had spread throughout England; people believed that they could hear in the distance the shouts of the murderers and the moans of the dying victims; fires were lighted; bells were rung; each man, believing himself in peril of his life, had no feelings, no ideas, no cares, except for this danger; and if anything was to be desired, it was not that the troubles of an insurrection should come in addition to the existing disquietudes, but that William's victory should promptly put an end to such anxiety.

James II. was flying in disguise; he was recognised at Feversham by some men, who insulted him and kept him prisoner. From this confinement he wrote to the lords who had just been exercising his power in London, to demand of them his liberty and an escort; his letter was carried by a peasant, who wept as he gave it in. The lords showed themselves less feeling; and their first answer was that this affair was no business of theirs. Some, of finer feelings, represented that this unnecessary harshness might be ill rewarded by the future king, who would wish, at least, to appear humane, were it only out of pure regard to

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appearances. Before such an argument all gave way; and they sent two hundred soldiers to set James free and accompany him to the sea-coast. But the king, having regained his liberty, refused to follow his escort, and returned to London. At his entrance he was applauded by some of those whose obscure and private situations rendered them strangers to the conflict going on; deprived of his hateful power, he seemed to them only a man, and a man in misfortune, and thus entitled to their pity. It was not the same with those who, during his prosperity, had been enriched by his liberality; reduced to the rank of a common man, he had nothing more for them, and he was received by them with coldness and contempt. His presence troubled them, for it exposed them to the suspicion of him to whom for the future was to belong the power of enriching by pensions and conferring honour by patents. Happily this trouble did not last long; James was desired to leave London. He was still at Whitehall when the soldiers of William came to occupy the palace. The prince entered the town at the head of his troops, as a conqueror and in triumph, to the sound of the acclamations of those whose fortunes were going to grow along with his own. Some satisfaction appeared on the faces of the citizens, who had been made to believe that their throats would be cut by the king's soldiers, but it was a quiet joy which denoted

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