was confined to
secular matters, and did not extend to laws enacted for the security
of the established religion. Yet, as the King was supreme head of the
Church, it should seem that, if he possessed the dispensing power at
all, he might well possess that power where the Church was concerned.
When the courtiers on the other side attempted to point out the bounds
of this prerogative, they were not more successful than the opposition
had been.

The truth is that the dispensing power was a great anomaly in politics.
It was utterly inconsistent in theory with the principles of mixed
government: but it had grown up in times when people troubled themselves
little about theories. [19] It had not been very grossly abused in
practice. It had therefore been tolerated, and had gradually acquired a
kind of prescription. At length it was employed, after a long interval,
in an enlightened age, and at an important conjuncture, to an extent
never before known, and for a purpose generally abhorred. It was
instantly subjected to a severe scrutiny. Men did not, indeed, at first,
venture to pronounce it altogether unconstitutional. But they began
to perceive that it was at direct variance with the spirit of the
constitution, and would, if left unchecked, turn the English government
from a limited into an absolute monarchy.

Under the influence of such apprehensions, the Commons denied the King's
right to dispense, not indeed with all penal statutes, but with penal
statutes in matters ecclesiastical, and gave him plainly to understand
that, unless he renounced that right, they would grant no supply for the
Dutch war. He, for a moment, showed some inclination to put everything
to hazard; but he was strongly advised by Lewis to submit to necessity,
and to wait for better times, when the French armies, now employed in an
arduous struggle on the Continent, might be available for the purpose
of suppressing discontent in England. In the Cabal itself the signs of
disunion and treachery began to appear. Shaftesbury, with his proverbial
sagacity, saw that a violent reaction was at hand, and that all things
were tending towards a crisis resembling that of 1640. He was determined
that such a crisis should not find him in the situation of Strafford.
He therefore turned suddenly round, and acknowledged, in the House of
Lords, that the Declaration was illegal. The King, thus deserted by
his ally and by his Chancellor, yielded, cancelled the Declaration