ON the Bo

CHAPTER VI.

N the 1st of July, 1690, the memorable Battle of Boyne was fought and won by William III. He received a slight wound; and that slight wound created an unexampled sensation throughout England and the cities and courts of Europe. A letter conveying the intelligence reached the Queen at Whitehall just as she was going to chapel; and, to use her own expression, it frightened her out of her wits. But out of her senses with trouble one day, she was out of her senses with joy the next, to find the injury turned out to be very slight.1 Paris, at first frantic with exultation on hearing of the supposed death of the great enemy of France, sunk into rageful disappointment to find that he was still alive, and ready to fight further battles in support of Protestantism. Strange as it may appear-but the strange combinations. of European parties and politics at that time will account for it the tidings of the wound brought no joy to Rome, any more than to Austria.2 Both were reassured by a true report of the fate of William. "No mortal man,' said Tillotson, "ever had his shoulder so kindly kissed by a cannon bullet;" a felicitous tune of expression,

1 Dalrymple, iii., appen. ii. 130, 132.

Macaulay has graphically described all this.

which even South, with all his prejudice against Tillotson, could not fail to admire.1

Whilst the battle was raging on the banks of the Boyne, a sea fight occurred off the Sussex coast; an English Bishop, in sympathy with his Royal master, was performing his sacred functions in the vicinity of the latter of these conflicts; and an extract from his Diary in reference to it is worth transcribing

men;

"Thirtieth of June, being Monday, I began my visitation at Arundel; and went the next day to Lewes, where I visited on Wednesday; and on Thursday went towards Hastings, and heard by the way that the French were burning that town. But we resolved to go on, being invited to lie at Sir Nicholas Pelham's, whose house was not many miles from it. He was gone thither with other country gentlethe French having attempted to burn some ships that were run on ground there. He sent us word the town was safe, but he could not come home that night. At six in the morning he came, and said there was no danger, but the town was in such confusion that it would be to no purpose to go thither. For the churches were full of soldiers, who lay there all night, and the streets full of country people, and all the women frighted away and fled, so that there were none left to dress any victuals. He invited us therefore to stay with him, and entertained us most kindly. But my Chancellor, Dr. Briggs, all on a sudden started up, and would go to Hastings, and about noon word was brought us some of the Clergy were there; which made me condemn myself for not going with him, though I followed the best advice I could get. And afterward it appeared to be the best; for though some of the clergy appeared, there was no place wherein to visit them;

1 Birch's Life of Tillotson, 306.

and besides it might have proved dangerous: for two men were killed with a cannon bullet in the very next house to that where my Chancellor sat; which made him run away in haste before he had done his business, and (as I remember) left some of his books behind him."

The Battle of the Boyne led to an important clerical conversion. William Sherlock, Master of the Temple, had distinguished himself in the reign of James II., not only by his zeal in contending against Popery, but also by his decision in maintaining the principle of non-resistance. He strongly disapproved of the turn which affairs took at the Revolution, and advocated negotiations with the exiled Monarch, in reference to his being restored upon terms which would preserve constitutional liberty. The accession of the Prince and Princess of Orange inspired indignation, and the new oaths were by him unhesitatingly declined. He threw in his lot with the Nonjurors, who regarded his talents with respect and his character with admiration; and they esteemed the support of a man so popular as a tower of strength. After losing the Mastership of the Temple, he retired into private life, and, pensive amidst misfortunes, wrote and published his celebrated treatise on Death. Still he deprecated schism; disapproved of the establishment of any Episcopal sect; advised those who could conscientiously remain, not to forsake their parish churches; and even officiated himself at St. Dunstan's, actually reading the prayers for William and Mary. When the Battle of the Boyne decided the fate of the exile, and secured peace for the occupants of the throne, Sherlock looked at things in another light, became reconciled to the revolutionary

settlement, and took the oaths which he had before refused. As a consequence, he returned to the Mastership of the Temple, and also received the Deanery of St. Paul's, vacated by Tillotson's elevation to Canterbury. So prominent a man on the nonjuring side, could not pass through such a conversion without giving some reasons for it; accordingly he wrote a book, which he entitled, The Case of the Allegiance due to Sovereign Fowers stated and resolved according to Scripture and Reason and the Principles of the Church of England.

Sancroft, soon after the Revolution, published what was called Bishop Overall's Convocation Book, written in the reign of James I., containing certain conclusions respecting Ecclesiastical and Civil Government, one of which, notwithstanding the current tone of the book in favour of non-resistance, is to the effect, that a Government originating in rebellion, when thoroughly settled, should be reverenced and obeyed as "being always God's authority, and therefore receiving no impeachment by the wickedness of those that have it." The Convocations of Canterbury and York had endorsed the contents of Overall's volume; and, by a canon, distinctly condemned the doctrine that a Government begun by rebellion, after being thoroughly settled, is not of God.1 Sherlock made a good deal out of this, and said he should have continued to stick at the oaths, had he not been relieved by Overall's book, and had not the venerable authority of a Convocation given him a freedom of thinking, which the apprehensions of novelty and singularity had cramped before.2 He did not consider, as is sometimes represented, that the Bishop and Convocation settled the matter, and that

1 Convocation Book, b. i. c. 28. Theology, 50, 51.

Edition in Library of Anglo Cathe. Case of Allegiance, Preface.

he was to submit as a child to the authoritative decree; but that a door had been thereby opened to the sons of the Church to look at the matter; and that he, having been thus induced to examine it afresh, had for various reasons, which he assigns-some of which, it must be acknowledged, run counter to his previous publications on the subject2-arrived at the conclusion that he could conscientiously take the required vow. A terrible storm assailed him after this. Argument, satire, and abuse, sometimes in vulgar prose, sometimes in doggerel rhyme, descended in torrents upon his devoted head. Nonjurors reviled him on the one side; Revolutionists on the other; and people who did not care for either side joined in the old English cry against turncoats and time-servers.

1

Macaulay (vi. 47) overstates the effect on Sherlock of the Convocation Book when he says, "His venerable Motherthe Church had spoken, and he, with the docility of a child, accepted her decree."

2 These inconsistencies are set forth in a pamphlet entitled Sherlock against Sherlock, a long extract as given by Ralph (ii. 270), from the vindication of some among ourselves as a specimen of the attacks on the Master of the Temple.

Amongst the Baker MSS., 40, 75, Cambridge University Library, is an undated letter written by

"Dr. Sherlock to my Lord of Canterbury,

owe and ought to pay allegiance to a Prince, who is settled on the throne, though he ascend thither by wicked arts, and without any legal rights."

After debating on this point at considerable length, fortifying his argument by reference to the Convocation Book, he concludes by saying: "I beg your Grace's pardon for the hasty and impolished draught, for my thoughts are all on fire, and it seems a very amazing providence to me that such a book should be published in such a juncture as this, as serves, indeed, the end it was designed for; but does a great deal more than ever was intended, and that which nobody thought of, to reconcile the doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance, with a submission and allegiance to usurped powers, when their Government is thoroughly settled. I will wait on your Grace on Saturday or Monday next."