The History of England Volume 8 (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAP. III. 1687. THE KING EXERCISES A DISPENSING POWER. DISPUTES WITH THE CHARTER-HOUSE. WITH CAMBRIDGE. WITH OXFORD. THE SPIRITUAL ORDER. DECLARATION OF LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. THE KING'S QUARREL WITH THE CHURCH. HIS GOOD FAITH IN GRANTING TOLERATION. ASCENDANCY OF FATHER PETRE. PUBLIC RECEPTION OP A PAPAL NUNCIO. ? THE ELECTIONS. " CLOSETINGS." PREGNANCY OP THE QUEEN. THE PETITION, IMPRISONMENT, AND TRIAL OP THE SEVEN BISHOPS. FATHER PETRE AND LORD SUNDERLAND. SUNDERLAND AVOWS HIMSELF A CATHOLIC. BIRTH OP A PRINCE OP WALES. ITS EFFECTS. FATALITY ATTENDING JAMES II. 1687. James now entered upon the third year of his reign, and signalised it very early by his breach with the Tories and the church. The persons in whose favour the king had exercised his dispensing power in the preceding year were, for the most part, obscure and isolated converts. His dispensations did not then provoke the zeal and conscience of the clergy, by assailing the two points of the fabric of the church which were held most sacred ? corporate monopoly and ecclesiastical revenue. The king's first skirmish was with the endowed seminary called the Charter-house. He issued his royal mandate to the governors, that they should admit, as a pensioner, Andrew Popham (a catholic) without taking the oaths. The master had the courage to resist, though Jeffreys was one of the governors, and required instant obedience. His resistance, however, was sanctioned by the majority of the governors, among whom were the duke of Ormond, the archbishop of Canterbury, the suspended bishop of London, lords Halifax, Netting- 1687. THE CHARTER-HOUSE CAMBRIDGE. 73 ham, and Dauby; and the mandate was urged no further. It was the object of James to plant his religion in the seminar...