to
treat with him, they should injure the cause which they wished to serve.
They therefore determined to coalesce with another body of Tories of
whom Sancroft was the chief. Sancroft fancied that he had found out
a device by which provision might be made for the government of the
country without recalling James, and yet without despoiling him of
his crown. This device was a Regency. The most uncompromising of those
divines who had inculcated the doctrine of passive obedience had never
maintained that such obedience was due to a babe or to a madman. It
was universally acknowledged that, when the rightful sovereign was
intellectually incapable of performing his office, a deputy might be
appointed to act in his stead, and that any person who should resist
the deputy, and should plead as an excuse for doing so the command of a
prince who was in the cradle, or who was raving, would justly incur the
penalties of rebellion. Stupidity, perverseness, and superstition, such
was the reasoning of the Primate, had made James as unfit to rule his
dominions as any child in swaddling clothes, or as any maniac who
was grinning and chattering in the straw of Bedlam. That course must
therefore be taken which had been taken when Henry the Sixth was an
infant, and again when he became lethargic. James could not be King in
effect: but he must still continue to be King in semblance. Writs must
still run in his name. His image and superscription must still appear on
the coin and on the Great Seal. Acts of Parliament must still be called
from the years of his reign. But the administration must be taken from
him and confided to a Regent named by the Estates of the Realm. In this
way, Sancroft gravely maintained, the people would remain true to their
allegiance: the oaths of fealty which they had sworn to their King would
be strictly fulfilled; and the most orthodox Churchmen might, without
any scruple of conscience, take office under the Regent. [635]

The opinion of Sancroft had great weight with the whole Tory party,
and especially with the clergy. A week before the day for which the
Convention had been summoned, a grave party assembled at Lambeth Palace,
heard prayers in the chapel, dined with the Primate, and then consulted
on the state of public affairs. Five suffragans of the Archbishop,
who had shared his perils and his glory in the preceding summer, were
present. The Earls of Clarendon and Ailesbury represented the Tory
laity. The unanim