(M817)

At length the court was sufficiently packed with dissenters to pass an
address to the king (26 July) thanking him for his declaration, and
assuring his majesty of their readiness to stand by him with their lives
and fortunes.(1588) The orphans of the city also voted an address,(1589)
as well they might, seeing the amount of money that the declaration had
been the means of bringing into the orphans' fund.

(M818) (M819) (M820)

Not every dissenter welcomed the king's declaration. To many of them it
seemed--what the king intended it to be--only a lever for raising the Roman
Catholics. Baxter, to whom friendly overtures were made by government to
win him over, refused to join in any address of thanks for the
declaration. John Howe declared himself an opponent of the dispensing
power, and Bunyan declined to enter into any negotiations on the matter at
all. William Kiffin, on the other hand, an influential Baptist in the
city, succumbed to the threats, if not to the blandishments, of
James.(1590) In addition to possessing spiritual gifts of no mean order,
Kiffin was also a man of wealth and position in the world of commerce. In
every way he would prove a valuable ally, if only he could be won over.
Against this, however, there was one great impediment: the recollection of
the judicial murder of his two grandsons, Benjamin and William Hewling, by
Jeffreys at the Bloody Assizes. Fondly imagining that the memory of that
foul act could be blotted out and the stricken heart salved by an increase
of wealth or elevation in rank, James sent for him to court, and after
some preliminary remarks touching the royal favour that was being shown to
dissenters, told Kiffin that he had put him down as an alderman in his
"new charter," alluding no doubt to the royal commission of 6th August, in
which Kiffin's name appears as alderman of Cheap ward in the place of
Samuel Dashwood. On hearing this Kiffin replied, "Sir, I am a very old
man,"--he was seventy years of age when he lost his grandchildren--"I have
withdrawn myself from all kind of business for some years past, and am
incapable of doing any service in such an affair to your majesty or the
city. Besides, sir," the old man continued, with tears running down his
cheeks, and looking the king steadily in the face, "the death of my
grandsons gave a wound to my heart which is still bleeding, and never will
close but in the grave." For a moment the king was abashed, but quickly