was shut, which is
strictly done at twelve o'clock, and nobody comes in afterwards, so we
lost our labour." On this occasion Pepys was more fortunate. He found "a
noble house and well furnished with good pictures and furniture, and
noble attendance in good order, and a great deal of company, though an
ordinary day, and exceeding good cheer, nowhere better or so much that
ever I think I saw." Sheldon with his usual courtesy gave his visitors
kindly welcome, and Pepys was preparing to withdraw at the close of
dinner when he heard news which induced him to remain. The almost
incredible scene that followed must be told in his own words:--"Most of
the company gone, and I going, I heard by a gentleman of a sermon that
was to be there; and so I stayed to hear it, thinking it to be serious,
till by-and-by the gentleman told me it was a mockery by one Cornet
Bolton, a very gentlemanlike man, that behind a chair did pray and
preach like a Presbyter Scot, with all the possible imitation in
grimaces and voice. And his text about the hanging up their harps upon
the willows; and a serious, good sermon too, exclaiming against bishops
and crying up of my good Lord Eglington till it made us all burst. But
I did wonder to hear the Bishop at this time to make himself sport with
things of this kind; but I perceive it was shown to him as a rarity, and
he took care to have the room door shut; but there were about twenty
gentlemen there, infinitely pleased with the 'novelty.'"

It was "novelties" like these that led the last of the Stuarts to his
fatal belief that he could safely defy a Church that had so severed
itself from the English religion in doing the work of the Crown. The pen
of a great historian has told for all time the Trial of the Seven
Bishops, and though their protest was drawn up at Lambeth I may not
venture to tell it here. Of all the seven in fact Sancroft was probably
the least inclined to resistance, the one prelate to whom the cheers of
the great multitude at their acquittal brought least sense of triumph.

No sooner indeed was James driven from the throne than the Primate fell
back into the servile king-worship of an England that was passing away.
Within the closed gates of Lambeth he debated endlessly with himself and
with his fellow-bishops the questions of "de jure" and "de facto" right
to the crown. Every day he sheered further and further from the actual
world around him. Newton, who was with him at Lambeth when it