hear a great
uproar in the camp, attended with the most extravagant symptoms
of tumultuary joy. He suddenly inquired the cause, and was told by
Feversham, "It was nothing but the rejoicing of the soldiers for the
acquittal of the bishops." "Do you call that nothing?" replied he: "but
so much the worse for them."

The king was still determined to rush forward in the same course in
which he was already, by his precipitate career, so fatally advanced.
Though he knew that every order of men, except a handful of Catholics,
were enraged at his past measures, and still more terrified with the
future prospect; though he saw that the same discontents had reached
the army, his sole resource during the general disaffection; yet was he
incapable of changing his measures, or even of remitting his violence
in the prosecution of them. He struck out two of the judges, Powel and
Holloway, who had appeared to favor the bishops: he issued orders to
prosecute all those clergymen who had not read his declaration; that is,
the whole church of England, two hundred excepted: he sent a mandate to
the new fellows whom he had obtruded on Magdalen College, to elect for
president, in the room of Parker, lately deceased, one Gifford, a doctor
of the Sorbonne, and titular bishop of Madura: and he is even said
to have nominated the same person to the see of Oxford. So great an
infatuation is perhaps an object of compassion rather than of anger;
and is really surprising in a man who, in other respects, was not wholly
deficient in sense and accomplishments.

A few days before the acquittal of the bishops, an event happened which,
in the king's sentiments, much overbalanced all the mortifications
received on that occasion. The queen was delivered of a son, who was
baptized by the name of James. This blessing was impatiently longed for,
not only by the king and queen, but by all the zealous Catholics both
abroad and at home. They saw, that the king was past middle age; and
that on his death the succession must devolve to the prince and princess
of Orange, two zealous Protestants, who would soon replace every thing
on ancient foundations. Vows, therefore, were offered at every shrine
for a male successor: pilgrimages were undertaken, particularly one to
Loretto, by the duchess of Modena; and success was chiefly attributed to
that pious journey. But in proportion as this event was agreeable to
the Catholics, it increased the disgust of the Protestants, by