Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/278

264 hope, Robert Walpole, Spencer Cowper, John Smith, John Dolben, and William Thompson. The prisoner was defended by Sir Simon Harcourt and Mr. Coustantine Phipps, and was attended by Drs. Smallridgo and Atterbury. The lord chancellor Cowper demanded of the lords whether it was their pleasure that Dr. Sacheverel should be called before them; and the answer being in the affirmative, he was placed at the bar, his friends Atterbury and Smallridge standing at his side. Silence being ordered, the doctor was asked whether he was ready to take his trial, to which he answered with great confidence that he was, and should always be ready to obey the laws of the land. The articles of impeachment were then read. They accused him of having publicly reflected on the late revolution, and suggested that it was brought about by odious and unjustifiable means; of having defamed the act of toleration, and cast scurrilous reflections on those who advocated religious toleration; of asserting that the church was in great peril from her majesty's administration; of maintaining the civil constitution of the country also was in danger; of stigmatising many of the dignitaries of the church—some of whom her majesty herself had placed in their important stations—as false brethren; and of libelling her majesty's ministers, and especially branding the lord high treasurer with the name of "Volpone;" and, finally, with having, in discharge of his sacred office, wickedly wrested and perverted the Holy Scriptures.



These charges were well supported by various members of the commons, and amongst these Robert Walpole particularly distinguished himself. The counsel for the doctor then pleaded in his behalf, and endeavoured to answer the arguments adduced against him. Sacheverel, however, was not contented with this; he delivered a defence himself, which has been generally considered to be the work of Atterbury, and probably with good reason. In this he dwelt much on his responsibility as a clergyman, and represented the interests of all his brethren and of the church as involved in this attack made upon them through his person. He expressed the utmost loyalty towards the queen and the constitution; denied having called in question the revolution, though he had certainly condemned in the strongest terms the resistance by which it was achieved. He declared