JAMES THE SECOND.

39

the effect of prorogation. From the day of the prorogationthe opposition to his designs had been growing stronger andstronger. It seemed clear that, if he effected his purpose, hemust effect it in defiance of that great party which had givensuch signal proofs of fidelity to his office, to his family, andto his person. The whole Anglican priesthood, the wholeCavalier gentry, were against him. In vain had-he, by virtueof his ecclesiastical supremacy, enjoined the clergy to abstainfrom discussing controverted points. Every parish in thenation was warned every Sunday against the errors of Rome;and these warnings were only the more effective, because theywere accompanied by professions of reverence for the Sove-reign, and of a determination to endure with patience what-ever it might be his pleasure to inflict. The royalist knightsand esquires who, through forty-five years of war and faction,had stood so manfully by the throne, now expressed in nomeasured phrase, their resolution to stand as manfully by theChurch. Dull as was the intellect of James, despotic as washis temper, he felt that he must change his course. He couldnot safely venture to outrage all his Protestant subjects atonce. If he could bring himself to make concessions to theparty which predominated in both Houses, if he could bringhimself to leave to'the established religion all its dignities,emoluments, and privileges unimpaired, he might still breakup Presbyterian meetings, and fill the gaols with Baptistpreachers. But if he was determined to plunder the hierarchy,he must make up his mind to forego the luxry of persecutingthe Dissenters. If he was henceforward to be at feud with hisold friends, he must take a truce with his old enemies. Hecould overpower the Anglican Church only by forming againsther an extensive coalition, including sects which, though theydiffered in doctrine and government far more widely fromeach other than from her, might yet be induced, by their com-mon jealousy of her greatness, and by their common dread ofher intolerance, to suspend their animosities till she was nolonger able to oppress them.

This plan seemed to him to have one strong recommenda-tion. If he could only succeed in conciliating the Protestant

CHAP.

VII.

168T.