an to
murmur when James demanded apostasy as a proof of their loyalty.

[Sidenote: James and the Nonconformists.]

He had in fact to abandon at last all hope of bringing the Church or the
Tories over to his will, and in the spring of 1687 he turned, as Charles
had turned, to the Nonconformists. He published in April a Declaration
of Indulgence which suspended the operation of the penal laws against
Nonconformists and Catholics alike, and of every Act which imposed a
test as a qualification for office in Church or State. A hope was
expressed that this measure would be sanctioned by Parliament when it
was suffered to reassemble. The temptation to accept the Indulgence was
great, for since the fall of Shaftesbury persecution had fallen heavily
on the Protestant dissidents, and we can hardly wonder that the
Nonconformists wavered for a time or that numerous addresses of thanks
were presented to James. But the great body of them, and all the more
venerable names among them, remained true to the cause of freedom.
Baxter, Howe, and Bunyan all refused an Indulgence which could only be
purchased by the violent overthrow of the law. It was plain that the
only mode of actually securing the end which James had in view was to
procure a repeal of the Test Act from Parliament itself. It was to this
that the king's dismissal of Rochester and other ministerial changes had
been directed; but James found that the temper of the existing Houses,
so far as he could test it, remained absolutely opposed to his project.
In July therefore he dissolved the Parliament, and summoned a new one.
In spite of the support he might expect from the Nonconformists in the
elections, he knew that no free Parliament could be brought to consent
to the repeal. The Lords indeed could be swamped by lavish creations of
new peers. "Your troop of horse," Lord Sunderland told Churchill, "shall
be called up into the House of Lords." But it was a harder matter to
secure a compliant House of Commons. No effort however was spared. The
Lord-Lieutenants were directed to bring about such a "regulation" of the
governing body in boroughs as would ensure the return of candidates
pledged to the repeal of the Test, and to question every magistrate in
their county as to his vote. Half of them at once refused to comply, and
a string of great nobles--the Lords of Oxford, Shrewsbury, Dorset,
Derby, Pembroke, Rutland, Abergavenny, Thanet, Northampton, and
Abingdon--were dismissed fr