JAMES THE SECOND.

69

tennined to use his vast patronage as a means of making prose-lytes. To be of his Church was, in his view, the first of all ■qualifications for office. To be of the national Church was apositive disqualification. He reprobated, it is true, in languagewhich has been applauded by some credulous friends of re-ligious liberty, the monstrous injustice of that test which ex-cluded a small minority of the nation from public trust: but hewas at the same time instituting a test which excluded themajority. He thought it hard that a man who was a goodfinancier and a loyal subject should be excluded from the postof Lord Treasurer merely for being a Papist. But he hadhimself turned out a Lord Treasurer whom he admitted to bea good financier and a loyal subject merely for being a Protes-tant. He had repeatedly and distinctly declared his resolutionnever to put the white staff in the hands of any heretic. Withmany other great offices of state he had dealt in the same way.Already the Lord President, the Lord Privy Seal, the LordChamberlain, the Groom of the Stole, the First Lord of theTreasury, a Secretary of State, the Lord High Commissionerof Scotland, the Chancellor of Scotland, the Secretary ofScotland, were, or pretended to be, Roman Catholics. Mostof these functionaries had been bred Churchmen, and hadbeen guilty of apostasy, open or secret, in order to obtain orto keep their high places. Every Protestant who still held animportant post in the government held it in constant uncer-tainty and fear. It would be endless to recount the situationsof a lower rank which were filled by the favoured class. RomanCatholics already swarmed in every department of the publicservice. They were Lords Lieutenants, Deputy Lieutenants,Judges, Justices of the Peace, Commissioners of the Customs,Envoys to foreign courts, Colonels of regiments, Governorsof fortresses. The share which in a few months they hadobtained of the temporal patronage of the crown was muchmore than ten times as great as they would have had under animpartial system. Yet this was not the worst. They weremade rulers of the Church of England. Men who had assuredthe King that they held his faith sate in the High Commission,and exercised supreme jurisdiction in spiritual things over all

CHAP.

VII.

168 T.