e read." Tillotson, Patrick, Sherlock,
and Stillingfleet declared that they were of the same mind. The majority
yielded to the authority of a minority so respectable. A resolution
by which all present pledged themselves to one another not to read the
Declaration was then drawn up. Patrick was the first who set his hand
to it; Fowler was the second. The paper was sent round the city, and was
speedily subscribed by eighty-five incumbents. [361]

Meanwhile several of the Bishops were anxiously deliberating as to the
course which they should take. On the twelfth of May a grave and
learned company was assembled round the table of the Primate at Lambeth.
Compton, Bishop of London, Turner, Bishop of Ely, White, Bishop of
Peterborough, and Tenison, Rector of St. Martin's parish, were among the
guests. The Earl of Clarendon, a zealous and uncompromising friend of
the Church, had been invited. Cartwright, Bishop of Chester, intruded
himself on the meeting, probably as a spy. While he remained, no
confidential communication could take place; but, after his departure,
the great question of which all minds were full was propounded and
discussed. The general opinion was that the Declaration ought not to be
read. Letters were forthwith written to several of the most respectable
prelates of the province of Canterbury, entreating them to come
up without delay to London, and to strengthen the hands of their
metropolitan at this conjuncture. [362] As there was little doubt that
these letters would be opened if they passed through the office in
Lombard Street, they were sent by horsemen to the nearest country post
towns on the different roads. The Bishop of Winchester, whose loyalty
had been so signally proved at Sedgemoor, though suffering from
indisposition, resolved to set out in obedience to the summons, but
found himself unable to bear the motion of a coach. The letter addressed
to William Lloyd, Bishop of Norwich, was, in spite of all precautions,
detained by a postmaster; and that prelate, inferior to none of his
brethren in courage and in zeal for the common cause of his order, did
not reach London in time. [363] His namesake, William Lloyd, Bishop of
St. Asaph, a pious, honest, and learned man, but of slender judgment,
and half crazed by his persevering endeavours to extract from Daniel and
the Revelations some information about the Pope and the King of France,
hastened to the capital and arrived on the sixteenth. [364] On the
fol