188

HISTOKY OF ENGLAND.

CHAP.

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ltjbS.

He pro-fessesliimsclf aRomanCatholic.

Trial ofthe Bi-shops.

tempted to propitiate the King by affecting a willingness to bereconciled to his Church. But there was point at whichRochester was determined to stop. He went to the verge ofapostasy: but there he recoiled: and the world, in considera-tion of the firmness with which he refused to take the finalstep, granted him a liberal amnesty for all former com-pliances. Sunderland, less scrupulous and less sensible ofshame, resolved to atone for his late moderation, and torecover the royal confidence, by an act which, to a mind im-pressed with the importance of religious truth, must haveappeared to be one of the most flagitious of crimes, and whicheven men of the world regard as the last excess of baseness.About a week before the day fixed for the great trial, it waspublicly announced that he was a Papist. The King talkedwith delight of this triumph of divine grace. Courtiers andenvoys kept their countenances as well as they could while therenegade protested that he had been long convinced of theimpossibility of finding salvation out of the communion ofRome, and that his conscience would not let him rest till hehe had renounced the heresies in which he had been broughtup. The news spread fast. At all the coffee-houses it wastold how the prime minister of England, his feet bare, and ataper in his hand, had repaired to the royal chapel andknocked humbly for admittance: how a priestly voice fromwithin had demanded who was there; how Sunderland hadmade answer that a poor sinner who had long wandered fromthe true Church implored her to receive and to absolve him;how the doors were opened; and how the neophyte partookof the holy mysteries.*

This scandalous apostasy could not but heighten the in-terest with which the nation looked forward to the day whenthe fate of the seven brave confessors of the English Churchwas to be decided. To pack a jury was now the great objectof the King. The crown lawyers were ordered to make strictinquiry as to the sentiments of the persons who were re-

* tv .11 JuncZI. June2S. . ,, Jtine29.

* Barillon, - 7 - 7 - 7 - — 7 - 5 - 1688; Adda, ■ , ,

’ July!. July8. ’ ’ JulyU.

stone, July 2.1688; The Converts, a poem.

Citters,

June 26.July 6.

John-