178

niSTORY OF ENGLAND.

CFIAP.

VIII.

1688.

Birth ofthe Pre-tender.

orders that the garrison of the Tower should be doubled, thatthe Guards should be held ready for action, and that two com-panies should be detached from every regiment in the king-dom, and sent up instantly to London. But the force onwhich he relied as the means of coercing the people shared allthe feelings of the people. The very sentinels who were underarms at the Traitors’ Gate reverently asked for a blessingfrom the martyrs whom they were to guard. Sir EdwardHales was Lieutenant of the Tower. He was little inclined totreat his prisoners with kindness. For he was an apostatefrom that Church for which they suffered; and he held severallucrative posts by virtue of that dispensing power againstwhich they had protested. He learned with indignation thathis soldiers were drinking the health of the Bishops. Heordered his officers to see that it was done no more. But theofficers came back with a report that the thing could not beprevented, and that no other health was drunk in the garrison.Nor was it .only by carousing that the troops showed their re-verence for the fathers of the Church. There was such ashow of devotion throughout the Tower that pious divinesthanked God for bringing good out of evil, and for makingthe persecution of His faithful servants the means of savingmany souls. All day the coaches and liveries of the firstnobles of England were seen round the prison gates. Thou-sands of humbler spectators constantly covered Tower Hill.*But among the marks of public respect and sympathy whichthe prelates received there was one which more than all therest enraged and alarmed the King. He learned that a de-putation of ten Nonconformist ministers had visited theTower. He sent for four of these persons, and himself up-braided them. They courageously answered that theythought it their duty to forget past quarrels, and to stand bythe men who stood by the Protestant religion.**

Scarcely had the gates of the Tower been closed on theprisoners when an event took place which increased the public

* Burnet, i. 141.; Citters, June ■,%. 1688; LutlreH's Diary, June8.:

Evelyn’s Diary; Letter of Dr. Nalson to his wife, dated June 14., andprinted from ihe Tanner HIS. j Reresby’s Memoirs.

** Keresby's Memoirs.