is for me to judge what is best. I will go my own way; and I call on
you to assist me." The Bishops assured him that they would assist him in
their proper department, as Christian ministers with their prayers, and
as peers of the realm with their advice in his Parliament. James, who
wanted neither the prayers of heretics nor the advice of Parliaments,
was bitterly disappointed. After a long altercation, "I have done," he
said, "I will urge you no further. Since you will not help me, I must
trust to myself and to my own arms." [515]

The Bishops had hardly left the royal presence, when a courier arrived
with the news that on the preceding day the Prince of Orange had landed
in Devonshire. During the following week London was violently agitated.
On Sunday, the eleventh of November, a rumour was circulated that
knives, gridirons, and caldrons, intended for the torturing of heretics,
were concealed in the monastery which had been established under the
King's protection at Clerkenwell. Great multitudes assembled round the
building, and were about to demolish it, when a military force arrived.
The crowd was dispersed, and several of the rioters were slain. An
inquest sate on the bodies, and came to a decision which strongly
indicated the temper of the public mind. The jury found that certain
loyal and well disposed persons, who had gone to put down the meetings
of traitors and public enemies at a mass house, had been wilfully
murdered by the soldiers; and this strange verdict was signed by all
the jurors. The ecclesiastics at Clerkenwell, naturally alarmed by these
symptoms of popular feeling, were desirous to place their property in
safety. They succeeded in removing most of their furniture before any
report of their intentions got abroad. But at length the suspicions of
the rabble were excited. The two last carts were stopped in Holborn, and
all that they contained was publicly burned in the middle of the street.
So great was the alarm among the Catholics that all their places of
worship were closed, except those which belonged to the royal family and
to foreign Ambassadors. [516]

On the whole, however, things as yet looked not unfavourably for James.
The invaders had been more than a week on English ground. Yet no man of
note had joined them. No rebellion had broken out in the north or the
east. No servant of the crown appeared to have betrayed his trust. The
royal army was assembling fast at Salisbury, and, though inferi