personification of the Latitudinarian spirit. This distinction he owed
to the prominent place which he held in literature and politics, to the
readiness of his tongue and of his pert, and above all to the frankness
and boldness of his nature, frankness which could keep no secret, and
boldness which flinched from no danger. He had formed but a low estimate
of the character of his clerical brethren considered as a body; and,
with his usual indiscretion, he frequently suffered his opinion to
escape him. They hated him in return with a hatred which has descended
to their successors, and which, after the lapse of a century and a half,
does not appear to languish.

As soon as the King's decision was known, the question was every where
asked, What will the Archbishop do? Sancroft had absented himself from
the Convention: he had refused to sit in the Privy Council: he had
ceased to confirm, to ordain, and to institute; and he was seldom
seen out of the walls of his palace at Lambeth. He, on all occasions,
professed to think himself still bound by his old oath of allegiance.
Burnet he regarded as a scandal to the priesthood, a Presbyterian in a
surplice. The prelate who should lay hands on that unworthy head would
commit more than one great sin. He would, in a sacred place, and before
a great congregation of the faithful, at once acknowledge an usurper
as a King, and confer on a schismatic the character of a Bishop. During
some time Sancroft positively declared that he would not obey the
precept of William. Lloyd of Saint Asaph, who was the common friend of
the Archbishop and of the Bishop elect, intreated and expostulated
in vain. Nottingham, who, of all the laymen connected with the new
government, stood best with the clergy, tried his influence, but to no
better purpose. The Jacobites said every where that they were sure of
the good old Primate; that he had the spirit of a martyr; that he was
determined to brave, in the cause of the Monarchy and of the Church, the
utmost rigour of those laws with which the obsequious parliaments of the
sixteenth century had fenced the Royal Supremacy. He did in truth hold
out long. But at the last moment his heart failed him, and he looked
round him for some mode of escape. Fortunately, as childish scruples
often disturbed his conscience, childish expedients often quieted it. A
more childish expedient than that to which he now resorted is not to be
found in all the tones of the casuists. He