Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/547

] tribunal was quickly brought into play. The commission was made known about the middle of July, and seven commissioners named. At their head stood the horrible Jeffreys, who was now to display his truculent spirit in the character of a grand inquisitor. The six other commissioners were archbishop Bancroft, bishops Crewe of Durham and Sprat of Rochester, lords Rochester, Sunderland, and the chief justice Herbert. Sancroft excused himself acting on the plea of ill health, and James in anger immediately ordered him to be omitted in the summons to the privy council, saying if his health were too bad to attend the commission, it was equally so to attend the council, and Cartwright, bishop of Chester, was put in the commission in his stead. Those pliant churchmen and courtiers were quickly shown what work they had to do. Amongst the clergymen who had ventured to preach against the Roman church, and to reply to the attacks which the Romish preachers were now emboldened to make on the Anglican church, beginning at Whitehall itself, Sharp, dean of Norwich, and one of the royal chaplains, had been honest enough to defend his own faith, and expose the errors of Rome in a sermon at his own church of St. Giles's-in-the-Fields. Compton, the bishop of London, was immediately called upon by Sunderland to suspend him. But Compton, though he had lately fallen under the royal displeasure for opposing James's designs in the house of lords, and had been dismissed from the privy council, and from his post of dean of the royal chapel, replied that he could not suspend Sharp without hearing him in his defence. Thereupon Compton was at once summoned before the new commissioners. He demurred, declared the court illegal, that he was a prelate, and amenable only to his peers in the church, or, as lord of parliament, to his peers in parliament. Consenting, however, at length to appear, he was abruptly asked by Jeffreys why he had not suspended Sharp. Compton demanded a copy of the commission, to see by what right they summoned him. This roused the base blood of Jeffreys, who began to insult the prelate, as he had done many a good man before, declaring that he would take another course with him; but the rest of the commissioners recalled the brutal bully to a sense of the respect due to the bishop. After the hearing of the case, Rochester, Herbert, and Sprat declared for his acquittal; but James, enraged at his treasurer, vowed if he did not give his vote against Compton, he would dismiss him from his office. The place-loving minister gave way. Compton was suspended from his spiritual functions, but dared the court to touch his revenues; and the chief justice warned James, that did he attempt to seize them, he would be defeated at common law. For awhile, therefore, James was obliged to restrain his proceedings till, as he resolved, he had put the laws more completely under his feet.

But enough had already been done to produce a change such as never had been seen in England since the days of queen Mary. Encouraged by the king's countenance and proceedings, the catholics now openly set at nought all the severe laws against them, their chapels, and priests. Though it was still death by the law for any Romish clergyman to appear in England, and all meeting of catholics were forbidden for worship under the severest penalties, the streets now swanned with the clergy in full canonicals, and popish chapels were opened in every part of the kingdom. The protestant public gazed in astonishment at sights which neither they nor their fathers had beheld in England. The frieze cowls, and girdles of rope, crosses, and rosaries, passed before them as apparitions of an almost fabulous time. James threw open the old chapel at St. James's, when a throng of Benedictine monks located themselves. He built for himself a public chapel at Whitehall, and induced Sandford, an Englishman, but the envoy of the prince palatine, to open a third in the city. A brotherhood of Franciscans established themselves in Lincoln's Inn Fields: another of Carmelites appeared in the city; a convent was founded in Clerkenwell, on the site of the ancient cloister of St. John, and a Jesuit church and school were opened in the Savoy, under a rector named Palmer.

The same ominous change appeared all over the country, especially in those districts where catholics were numerous. But neither in town nor country were the common people disposed to see the whole empire of popery thus restored. They assembled and attacked the catholics going into their chapels, insulted them, knocked down their crosses and images, and turned them into the streets. Hence riots ran high and fiercely in London, Worcester, Coventry, and other places. The lord mayor ordered the chapel of the prince palatine in Lime Street to be closed, but he was severely threatened by the king and Jeffreys. The mob then took the matter into their hands; they attacked the chapel at high mass, drove out the people and priests, and set the cross on the parish pump. It was in vain that the train bands were ordered out to quell the riot, they refused to fight for popery.

But this spirit, which would have caused a wiser monarch to pause, only incensed James, and he assembled an army of thirteen thousand men on Hounslow Heath to overawe the city, and conveyed thither twenty-six pieces of artillery, and ample supplies of ammunition from the Tower. But it boded little prospect of support from his army that the people of London immediately fraternised with it, and the camp became the great holiday resort of all classes, resembling, in the strange concourse of strange characters who appeared there, Schiller's description of the camp of Wallenstein. James, however, was proud of his army, and flattered himself that from his having formerly been a general in the French service, he could command it to some purpose. But there were as clever tacticians as himself at work. He allowed mass to be publicly celebrated in the tent of lord Dumbarton, the second in command, and this with the known fact that many officers were catholics, and the sight of priests and friars strolling about amongst the tents roused the zeal of protestant patriots. Foremost amongst these was Dr. Samuel Johnson, who had been chaplain to lord Russell, and was a man of the most liberal ideas of government, and a sturdy champion of protestantism. In the last reign he had written a severe satire on James, under the title of "Julian the Apostate," in which he drew a vigorous, parallel betwixt the Roman apostate and the English one. Julian, according to him, an idolater even when he pretended not to be, was a persecutor when he pretended freedom of conscience, and robbed cities of their municipal charters, which were zealous for the true faith. For this