JAMES THE SECOND.
229
read the Declaration.* The King anticipated with delight ™£ p -the terror with which the offenders would learn that they ieaslwere to be cited before a court which would give them noquarter.“ The number of culprits was little, if at all, shortof ten thousand: and, after what had passed at MagdaleneCollege, every one of them might reasonably expect to beinterdicted from all his spiritual functions, ejected from hisbenefice, declared incapable of holding any other preferment,and charged with the costs of the proceedings which hadreduced him to beggary.
Such was the persecution with which James, smarting Dismis-from lus great defeat m Westminster Hall, resolved to harass promo-the clergy. Meanwhile he tried to show the lawyers, by a tl0ns-prompt and large distribution of rewards and punishments,that strenuous and unblushing servility, even when leastsuccessful, was a sure title to his favour, and that whoever,after years of obsequiousness, ventured to deviate but forone moment into courage and honesty was guilty of an un-pardonable offence. The violence and audacity which theapostate Williams had exhibited throughout the trial of theBishops had made him hateful to the whole nation.*** He wasrecompensed with a baronetcy. Holloway and Powell hadraised their character by declaring that, in their judgment,the petition was no libel. They were dismissed from theirsituations.! The fate of Wright seems to have been, duringsome time, in suspense. He had indeed summed up againstthe Bishops: but he had suffered their counsel to questionthe dispensing power. He had pronounced the petition alibel: but he had carefully abstained from pronouncing theDeclaration legal; and, through the whole proceeding, his
* London Gazelle of July lit. 1688. The order bears dale July 12.
** Barillon's own phrase, July ft. 1688.
*** In one of the numerous ballads of lhal lime are the followinglines:
“Both our Britons are fooled,
Who Ihe laws overruled ,
And next parliament each will be plaguily schooled.”
The two Britons are Jeffreys and Williams, who were both natives ofWales.
f London Gazette, July 9. 1688.