demise defeated these projects. The supporters of the elector had made all their arrangements in anticipation of the queen's death. The Tories, on the other hand, were divided and undecided. Atterbury, and a few of the bolder partisans of the chevalier, urged their friends to proclaim him. But more timid counsels prevailed, and the elector of Hanover, under the title of George I., ascended without opposition the throne of Great Britain.

The feeling in favour of the prince was, nevertheless, strong and general. The clergy especially had not forgotten their old doctrines of hereditary right, and laboured by their sermons and conversation to spread discontent through the country. The new king made a very unfavourable impression on those who had access to him. He spoke English very imperfectly, he was surrounded by German mistresses, who were described as “trulls, and very ugly trulls.” The leader of the disaffected party among the clergy was the able and ambitious Bishop Atterbury, and he was supported by Robinson, now bishop of London, who, as we have seen, had highly distinguished himself in the negotiation of the treaty of Utrecht.

During the reign of Anne an effort, which nearly proved successful, was made to effect a union between the Churches of England and Prussia. In the year

1701, the electorate of Prussia became a kingdom, and Frederic, the first king, wishing to give all possible éclat to his newly assumed dignity, had conferred on two of the most eminent ministers of his dominions

the title of bishops, in order that they might officiate in that capacity at his coronation; and this led him to desire to introduce into his kingdom the liturgy, doctrine, and discipline of the Anglican Church. One of his two bishops died, and Dr. Ernestus Jablousky having taken the matter up very zealously, persuaded the king to direct Dr. Ursinus, the surviving bishop, to write to Archbishop Tenison on the subject, and to propose that the English ecclesiastical system should be introduced into Prussia on the First Sunday in Advent. The proposal gave great satisfaction both in England and Prussia, and was warmly welcomed by many influential members of the Anglican Church, among whom may be mentioned Sharp, archbishop of York, who entered very zealously into the matter, and did his utmost to promote it.

The queen herself also supported the scheme, and commanded Lord Raby, her minister at the Prussian court, to express to the Prussian monarch her hearty. thanks for the interest he had displayed in regard to the matter. Although the question of a union between the Church of England and the Protestant communions. on the continent had often been agitated, no definite plan had ever been put forward until this overture was made. It was well calculated to meet the views both of the High and Low Churchmen of that period, but appears to have been frustrated by the inaction of Archbishop Tenison, whose indolence or indifference disgusted the Prussian monarch, and caused him to desist from his design.

The scheme was therefore dropped, and was never revived again till the year 1841, when, under the auspices of Archbishop Howley, a step was made in the same direction, an agreement having been entered into and sanctioned by Act of Parliament, in virtue of which a Lutheran divine, nominated by the Prussian Government, and a clergyman of the Anglican Church, nominated by the Government of this country, should alternately be consecrated to the see of Jerusalem, with the intention of making this arrangement a first step towards the union of the Churches of England and Prussia. No second step, however, has been taken in this matter, nor is likely to be, the religious ideas of the two countries having diverged too widely to admit of such a union between them as at one time seemed on the point of being effected.

The idea was highly popular both in our own country and in Prussia. Bonet, the Prussian minister at the English court, stated to his Government that a conformity between the members of the Prussian Church would be received with great joy in England. At the same time he gave his opinion that the conformity to be wished for, related more to the government of the Church than to any change in the ritual or liturgy. He added that the clergy in England were strongly in favour of Episcopacy, that they regarded that form of government as being at least of apostolic institution, and were possessed with an opinion that it had been continued in an uninterrupted succession from the times of the apostles to their day; and that, upon this supposi

tion, they alleged that there could be no true ecclesiastical government but under bishops of this order, nor any true ministers of the Gospel but such as had been ordained by bishops; and that if there were other ministers of the Anglican Church that did not go so far as this, yet that all of them made a great difference between those who had received the laying on of hands from bishops, and those who had been ordained by a Presbyterian synod.

Tenison affirmed that the address which was alleged to have been sent to him in favour of this scheme, had never reached him; but it was evident that he was not heartily zealous for it, if, indeed, he was not absolutely hostile to it. On the other hand, Sharp, the archbishop of York, whose Church principles, as has been intimated already, were those which were described by Bonet, zealously supported this scheme of union; but his efforts were vain, for the Prussian monarch, disgusted at finding his advances so negligently treated by the highest authority in the English Church, desisted from his endeavours, and the matter dropped.

U

CHAPTER VI.

THE GEORGES.

THE successful manner in which George had been proclaimed seemed for a moment to have stunned and silenced the Jacobites, and the Whigs proceeded to take advantage of their prostrate condition, in order to carry measures of a liberal character, especially in reference to religion, by freeing the Nonconformists from some of the fetters with which they had been bound during the ascendancy of the Tories in the latter part of Queen Anne's reign.

The Occasional Conformity Act, passed in the year 1711, and the Schism Act, adopted in 1714, were now repealed. But the Test and Corporation Acts, passed in the reign of Charles II., though allowed to remain, were rendered innoxious by annual suspensions at least so far as they related to offices held under the crown, though they still remained in vigour with regard to offices in municipal corporations, notwithstanding the efforts made by Lord Stanhope to obtain the repeal of them, and the liberal and honourable support that he