JAMES THE SECOND.

129

been in the habit of recounting in acrimonious language allthat they had suffered at the hand of the Puritan in the day -of his power. Yet for the Puritan there was some excuse.He was an avowed enemy: he had wrongs to avenge; andeven lie, while remodelling the ecclesiastical constitutionof the country, and ejecting all who would not subscribe hisCovenant, had not been altogether without compassion. Hehad at least granted to those whose benefices he seized apittance sufficient to support lift. But the hatred felt by theKing towards that Church which had saved him from exileand placed him on a throne was not to be so easily satiated.Nothing but the utter ruin of his victims would content him.It was not enough that they were expelled from their homesand stripped of their revenues. They found every walk oflife towards which men of their habits could look for a sub-sistence closed against them with malignant care, and nothingleft to them but the precarious and degrading resourceof alms.

The Anglican clergy therefore, and that portion of thelaity which was strongly attached to Protestant episcopacy,now regarded the King with those feelings which injusticeaggravated by ingratitude naturally excites. Yet had theChurchman still many scruples of conscience and honour tosurmount before he could bring himself to oppose the go-vernment by force. He had been taught that passiveobedience was enjoined without restriction or exception bythe divine law. He had professed this opinion ostentatiously.He had treated with contempt the suggestion that an extremecase might possibly arise which would justify a people indrawing the sword against regal tyranny. Both principle andshame therefore restrained him from imitating the exampleof the rebellious Roundheads, while any hope of a peacefuland legal deliverance remained; and such a hope might rea-sonably be cherished as long as the Princess of Orange stoodnext in succession to the crown. If he would but endure withpatience this trial of his faith, the laws of nature would soondo for him what he could not, without sin and dishonour, dofor himself. The wrongs of the Church would be redressed;

Macaulay, History, lit. 9

cnAP.

VIII.

1687 .