her supremacy. Had that deprivation been null? Had Bonner
continued to be, to the end of his life, the only true Bishop of
London? Had his successor been an usurper? Had Parker and Jewel been
schismatics? Had the Convocation of 1562, that Convocation which had
finally settled the doctrine of the Church of England, been itself out
of the pale of the Church of Christ? Nothing could be more ludicrous
than the distress of those controversialists who had to invent a plea
for Elizabeth which should not be also a plea for William. Some zealots,
indeed, gave up the vain attempt to distingush between two cases which
every man of common sense perceived to be undistinguishable, and frankly
owned that the deprivations of 1559 could not be justified. But no
person, it was said, ought to be troubled in mind on that account; for,
though the Church of England might once have been schismatical, she had
become Catholic when the Bishops deprived by Elizabeth had ceased to
live. [91] The Tories, however, were not generally disposed to admit
that the religious society to which they were fondly attached had
originated in an unlawful breach of unity. They therefore took ground
lower and more tenable. They argued the question as a question of
humanity and of expediency. They spoke much of the debt of gratitude
which the nation owed to the priesthood; of the courage and fidelity
with which the order, from the primate down to the youngest deacon,
had recently defended the civil and ecclesiastical constitution of the
realm; of the memorable Sunday when, in all the hundred churches of the
capital, scarcely one slave could be found to read the Declaration of
Indulgence; of the Black Friday when, amidst the blessings and the loud
weeping of a mighty population, the barge of the seven prelates passed
through the watergate of the Tower. The firmness with which the clergy
had lately, in defiance of menace and of seduction, done what they
conscientiously believed to be right, had saved the liberty and religion
of England. Was no indulgence to be granted to them if they now refused
to do what they conscientiously apprehended to be wrong? And where, it
was said, is the danger of treating them with tenderness? Nobody is so
absurd as to propose that they shall be permitted to plot against
the Government, or to stir up the multitude to insurrection. They are
amenable to the law, like other men. If they are guilty of treason, let
them be hanged. If they are gu