attendants dipped their chaplets and handkerchiefs in his blood.1

William went into mourning.

Coaches and liveries

were put in black; 2 but tidings of the promise made by Louis soon aroused indignation.

The King was in Holland at this crisis, but Sir Thomas Abney, the Nonconformist Lord Mayor of London, at once caused an address to be voted to His Majesty, expressive of the loyalty of the citizens, and of their determination to oppose France and the Pretender.

After William had returned on his fortunate day, the 5th of November, he on the 11th dissolved Parliament, and then called another: as he was taking this step, loyal addresses poured in from all parts, and amongst them one from the London Nonconformists, presented by John Howe. They said they were grateful to Divine Providence for the settlement of the Protestant succession, and pledged themselves to use their utmost endeavours to maintain His Majesty's title, and that of his successors, as by law established. An address of the same nature

was presented by the Baptists.*

The truth is, a new war now threatened Europe, for Louis had torn in pieces the Ryswick Treaty by the bedside of James, and deliberately defied the provisions of the Act of Settlement.

When William met his new Parliament on the 31st of December, 1701, he told them that the setting up of

the pretended Prince of Wales as King of England was not only the highest indignity to himself and the nation, but it concerned every one who valued the Protestant religion or the welfare of his country. "I have shown," these were the closing words he used, "and will always show, how desirous I am to be the common father of all my people. Do you, in like manner, lay aside parties and divisions. Let there be no other distinction heard of amongst us for the future, but of those who are for the Protestant religion and the present Establishment, and of those who mean a Popish Prince and a French Government. I will only add this-if you do in good earnest desire to see England hold the balance of Europe, and to be indeed at the head of the Protestant interest, it will appear by your right improving the present opportunity."

His speech elicited applause. It charmed the Whigs, and many had it ornamentally printed in English, French, and Dutch, and hung up on the walls of their homes. Political animosities were lulled for awhile by circumstances inspiring concern for the Empire, and "the whole nation, split before into an hundred adverse factions, with a King at its head evidently declining to his tomb, the whole nation, Lords, Commons, and people, proceeded as one body, informed by one soul."2 Unanimously it was resolved that no peace should be made with France until after reparation for the indignity done to England.

A mania for oath-taking infected our fathers, and now, in addition to the old law, which had occasioned the nonjuring party, came a new law, which served to revive it. When death had taken away the Sovereign to whom they regarded themselves as pledged while he lived, the Nonjurors began to deliberate about taking the oath, but a

1 Parl. Hist., v. 1331.

2 Edmund Burke.

new form of abjuration stopped their deliberations.1 Ken was troubled at the prospect of its universal imposition, and hoped its enforcement would be limited; but a Bill passed requiring not only all civil officers, but also all ecclesiastics, all members of the Universities, and all schoolmasters to acknowledge William as lawful and rightful King, and to deny any title whatever in the pretended Prince of Wales. Sixteen Lords, including Compton, Bishop of London, and Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, protested against the Abjuration Bill; 2 and others reasonably judged that to swear allegiance was one thing, but to swear respecting the nature of a title to the Crown was another that in the first case people were within the region of fact, that in the second they were brought into the region of theory. Calamy records, with no apparent dissatisfaction, that the oath was thought to be the best means of disappointing such as hoped by the assistance of France to make way for the Pretender, and so accomplish the design of restoring arbitrary power and the Popish religion. The Abjuration Bill received the Royal assent by Commission in the month of March, 1702.

Naturally at this juncture there were Jacobites who felt a flutter of excitement. Looking upon oaths as cobwebs easily brushed away, they hoped the Hanoverian succession might prove an idle dream, and, on the tiptoe of expectation, began eagerly to talk to one another of prospects, which brightened as the declining health of William foreboded his speedy removal. One busy agent forwarded for the use of the Stuarts certain proposals, in which he curiously sketched the political views of religious parties in this country, as they struck his eye.

Whiston's Memoirs, 32.

2 Lords' Journals, February 24, 1702. • Life, i. 440.

"As for England, the parties most to be considered are— First, the Episcopal, which, being in possession of the bells, is by far the most numerous, though not the most active; for, being at their ease, and possessing not only the tythes but the magistracy and profitable employments of the nation, they flatter themselves with an opinion that upon any emergency or change of State, they shall be able to give the law to all other interests. And it is not improbable they might, could they find out a way to settle the Crown upon any solid basis. But that not being possible to be done but in the right line, that party rather suffers than approves of what has been done, by adding the House of Hanover to their weak and trembling entail, which, as it was the project only of the Prince of Orange and his Dutch Council, is by many suspected, but despised by more, nor could have passed the House of Commons, but that they were told it was the only way to express a contempt of the power of France; and by that means to make the people believe that they feared nothing thence, and likewise to oblige that Monarch to apprehend their power to be much greater than indeed it is; to stave off a war they more apprehend and dread themselves than he needs to do, notwithstanding all the rabble and trading part of the nation are universally for it.

"The next party requiring consideration is the Presbyterian, which consists of a malicious, sour, and subtle part of men, who are more united in malice than the former, and do, with their demure countenances and outside Pharisaical righteousness, draw from the churches to their meeting-houses the most hypocritical part of the trading people; so that their numbers are wonderfully increased of late years, to the terror of the aspiring part of the episcopal parsons, who dread that Bishops, Deans, and Chapters are tumbling down again, knowing bare

competencies too weak supports for their dissolute and scandalous lives.

"The next party to be considered is the Independent, under which denomination may be included that rabble of divers sects, which by above fifty several whimsical societies engross in the whole a greater number of dissenters to the Prelatical Church than the Presbyterians do, and are mortal enemies to both, including within them that sort of men which are most properly called Republicans or Commonwealth's-men, a restless, bold, and busy spirit, easiest to be gained to your Majesty's interest, it being become a maxim amongst the wisest of them, that since it appears impracticable to unite and settle all interests in a Commonwealth, it is absolutely necessary to restore your Majesty and the right line, to keep off the necessity of a perpetual war, which these botching entails apparently threaten the nation with. Nay, in their maxims they go farther, and say that it were better for the kingdom in general, but most for themselves in particular, that the rightful Monarch should be a Catholic rather than of the Episcopal or Presbyterian ways, which will ever in their several turns, when united to the Crown, persecute or at least discountenance them.

"The numerous party of the Quakers cannot be reckoned under the last head, and are not to be disregarded as mad men, as they seem to many to be. For, generally speaking, they are your Majesty's friends, and in all discourses with their oppugners charge them with their inhuman and unjust dealing with their rightful Prince; an argument that nonplusses all, and converts some to see the wickedness of their ways. Besides, to my certain experience, there are many capable of being agents and negotiators amongst them, as willing, as able, if well directed.