person. But when it became evident that the new Government was firmly seated, they hastened, at the last moment, to make their peace with it, to prepare apologies for their change of opinion, and save their benefices by taking the oaths to it. The consequence was, as Clarendon in his diary bitterly complains, that there was a "great alteration in the tone of the discourses that were then delivered." The old High Church doctrines were still secretly held, but for a time they had almost disappeared from the sermons of the clergy.

Eventually, of the three Bills which had been introduced into Parliament shortly after the accession of William, and which faithfully represented his views with regard to the Church and religion, as well as the opinions of several of those who had taken a leading and active part in bringing about the late revolution, the Toleration Bill was carried, and the other two were rejected. As already mentioned, the first of these statutes granted a grudging, limited, and imperfect toleration to some denominations of Nonconformists, while it excluded others. But it allowed full liberty of preaching to the great majority of the Nonconformist ministers. In dealing with the other two measures, the Parliament had adopted a resolution that was fatal to their success, when they decided, without a single dissentient voice, to request the king to summon the Convocation of the clergy of the kingdom.

What they meant by this somewhat ambiguous phrase does not very clearly appear. Macaulay, indeed, has laid it down very decidedly, that it was "merely

the Synod of the province of Canterbury," and he affirms that "it never had a right to speak in the name of the whole clerical body." He appears not to have been aware that the two Convocations have ever been fused into one, or have ever acted together on ecclesiastical questions; and yet the title given in the Book of Common Prayer to the Thirty-nine Articles clearly proves the contrary of that which he alleges. It distinctly affirms that at least on one important occasion the two Convocations sat and acted together, for the title placed at the head of the Articles runs as follows:-" Articles agreed upon by the archbishops and bishops of both provinces, and the whole clergy, in the Convocation holden at London in the year 1562, for the avoiding of diversities of opinions," etc. Considering the language of the resolution by which the Convocation was summoned to meet, may we not conclude that when the two Houses of Parliament spoke of "the Convocation of the Clergy of the kingdom," they intended such a fusion of the two Convocations as is clearly intimated in the title at the head of the Articles to which we have just referred; in fact, not to a provincial but to a national synod, such as that which is stated to have been held in the year 1562?

The very first act of the Convocation showed what was the spirit that animated the great majority of its members. The choice of a prolocutor was the crucial test which should decide the relative strength of the two contending parties-the party of moderate concession, and the party of resistance to all change. The

chosen champion of the latter party was Dr. Jane, a High Churchman, Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford. That of the latter was Tillotson. Nothing shows more clearly the importance that was attached by the king to this struggle than the retention of Tillotson in the Lower House, long after he had been designated for the archbishopric, in order that he might give the supporters of the Government the aid of his influence and reputation. Both parties, indeed, put forth all their strength in order to secure the victory.

The result of the struggle between them was that Jane obtained fifty-five votes, while only twenty-eight were given to Tillotson. The defeat suffered in this preliminary skirmish was of evil augury for the future success of the proposed changes. Burnet had given up all expectation of being able to effect them. Tillotson, more sanguine than his friend, still continued to hope against hope, but he was speedily undeceived. According to the usual practice of Convocation, the Upper House prepared an address to the Crown, and requested the Lower House to join with them in adopting it. The Lower House refused, and at length finding that by ancient custom the two Houses were bound to combine in this matter, they grudgingly and reluctantly accepted a very cold address, and one that completely destroyed all remaining hopes of success.

After a prorogation, caused by an informality which Compton had detected in the Royal Commission, and which, no doubt, served to irritate the Lower House, already ill disposed towards the new Government, the

bishops drew up an address containing the following expressions:

"We thank your Majesty for the grace and goodness expressed in your message, and the zeal shown in it for the Protestant religion in general, and the Church of England in particular, and for the trust and confidence reposed in the Convocation by the Commission, which marks of your Majesty's care and favour we look upon as a continuation of the great deliverance which Almighty God has wrought for us by your means, by making you the blessed instrument of preserving us from falling under the cruelty of Popish tyranny; for which, as we have often thanked Almighty God, so we cannot forget that high obligation and duty which we owe to your Majesty. And on these new assurances of your favour and protection to the Church, we beg leave to renew the assurance of our constant fidelity and obedience to your Majesty, whom we pray God to continue long and happily to reign over us." William must have been deeply mortified, but the state of his affairs in England and Ireland did not allow him to quarrel with the clergy, he swallowed the affront, and wisely made a gracious reply.

Compton had contributed a good deal to bring about this defeat of the Government. Deeply disappointed at not being raised to the primacy, while openly pretending to support it, he secretly intrigued against it, and did all he could well venture to do to foment the discontent of his clergy. Indeed, he had some reason to be disappointed and even vexed at the preference shown to

Tillotson over himself. His services to William and the new Government had been of no ordinary kind, and gave him a strong claim on its patronage. He had been the first victim of the tyranny of the ecclesiastical commission. He had been highly serviceable to William, not only by carrying on a correspondence with him, but also by inducing others to conspire. He had brought the Princess Ann into William's camp, and in doing so had doffed the peaceful habit of his order to put on the military uniform which he had worn when a young officer in the army. And he had been amongst the first to swear allegiance to William and Mary.

These were, no doubt, important services, and such as gave him a strong claim on the gratitude of William, but they were hardly such as qualified the man who had rendered them to sit on the primate's throne. But it was

not unnatural that he should be vexed when he found that Tillotson, a simple Presbyter, and the son of a Yorkshire clothier, was to be placed by the Government in the seat which he, not unreasonably, considered that he had special and peculiar claims to occupy.

Burnet gives it as his opinion that it was a fortunate circumstance that the Convocation defeated the projected changes, believing, as he did, that the Nonjurors, who had formed themselves into a separate communion, would probably have continued to use the old form of prayer, to which great numbers of persons still continued to be warmly attached, and would thus have drawn after them a very numerous body of persons who at present were content to frequent churches in which the old forms