urrection, the complete prostration of the party which had
attempted to exclude him from the crown, elated him beyond the bounds of
reason. He felt an assurance that every obstacle would give way before
his power and his resolution. His Parliament withstood him. He tried the
effects of frowns and menaces. Frowns and menaces failed. He tried the
effect of prorogation. From the day of the prorogation the opposition
to his designs had been growing stronger and stronger. It seemed clear
that, if he effected his purpose, he must effect it in defiance of
that great party which had given such signal proofs of fidelity to his
office, to his family, and to his person. The whole Anglican priesthood,
the whole Cavalier gentry, were against him. In vain had he, by virtue
of his ecclesiastical supremacy, enjoined the clergy to abstain from
discussing controverted points. Every parish in the nation was warned
every Sunday against the errors of Rome; and these warnings were only
the more effective, because they were accompanied by professions of
reverence for the Sovereign, and of a determination to endure with
patience whatever it might be his pleasure to inflict. The royalist
knights and esquires who, through forty-five years of war and faction,
had stood so manfully by the throne, now expressed, in no measured
phrase, their resolution to stand as manfully by the Church. Dull as was
the intellect of James, despotic as was his temper, he felt that he
must change his course. He could not safely venture to outrage all
his Protestant subjects at once. If he could bring himself to make
concessions to the party which predominated in both Houses, if he could
bring himself to leave to the established religion all its dignities,
emoluments, and privileges unimpaired, he might still break up
Presbyterian meetings, and fill the gaols with Baptist preachers. But if
he was determined to plunder the hierarchy, he must make up his mind to
forego the luxury of persecuting the Dissenters. If he was henceforward
to be at feud with his old friends, he must make a truce with his old
enemies. He could overpower the Anglican Church only by forming against
her an extensive coalition, including sects which, though they differed
in doctrine and government far more widely from each other than from
her, might yet be induced, by their common jealousy of her greatness,
and by their common dread of her intolerance, to suspend their
animosities till she was no long