THE 1NTEKBEGNUM.

423

While the Commons were discussing Sharp’s sermon, the chap.Lords had again gone into a committee on the state of the I6S8 _nation, and had ordered the resolution which pronounced thethrone vacant to be read clause by clause.

The first expression on which a debate arose was thatwhich recognised the original contract between King andpeople. It was not to be expected that the Tory peers wouldsuffer a phrase which contained the quintessence of Whiggismto pass unchallenged. A division took place ; and it wasdetermined by fifty-three votes to forty-six that the wordsshould stand.

The severe censure passed by the Commons on the ad-ministration of James was next considered, and was approvedwithout one dissentient voice. Some verbal objections weremade to the proposition that James had abdicated the govern-ment. It was urged that he might more correctly be said tohave deserted it. This amendment was adopted, it shouldseem, with scarcely any debate, and without a division. Bythis time it was late; and the Lords again adjourned.* *

Up to this moment the small body of peers which was schismunder the guidance of Danby had acted in firm union with u, C e WeBI1Halifax and the Whigs. The effect of this union had been J™**that the plan of Regency had been rejected, and the doctrine followersof the original contract affirmed. The proposition that James otDanl ’ J 'had ceased to be King had been the rallying point of the twoparties which had made up the majority. But from that pointtheir path diverged. The next question to be decided waswhether the throne was vacant; and this was a question notmerely verbal, but of grave practical importance. If thethrone was vacant, the Estates of the Realm might place Wil-liam in it. If it was not vacant, he could succeed to it onlyafter his wife, after Anne, and after Anne’s posterity.

It was, according to the followers of Danby, an establishedmaxim that our country could not be, even for a moment, with-out a rightful prince. The man might die; but the magistrate

liis son; Apology for the New Separation, in a letter to Dr. John Sharp,Archbishop of York, 1091.

* Lords’ Journals, Jan. 30. 108|; Clarendon’s Diary.