Page:Dean Aldrich A Commemoration Speech.djvu/11

 the dying rebels, its famous decree of passive obedience: 'That all Readers, Tutors, and Catechists should diligently instruct their pupils in this doctrine which is the badge of the Church of England, the doctrine of submitting to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, and that this submission be clear, absolute, and without exception,'

What part Aldrich bore in this I know not; but I cannot doubt. It was a question to a great extent between loyal Church and unruly Nonconformity, and Aldrich, as Hearne says, was 'above all a sincere member of the Church of England.' His Dean was Dr. Fell, 'a worthy successor of the illustrious Dr. Laud' in Oxford, says Antony à Wood; and his colleague in the Chapter was Dr. South.

Anyhow, when the fiery trial came, Christ Church did not crack under the strain of its own enactment, a charge so often thrown in the face of the heroes of Magdalen. For, in 1686, the great Dean, Dr. Fell, died, 'a learned and pious divine,' says Antony à Wood, 'an excellent Grecian, a great assertor of the Church, a second founder of his College, a patron of the whole University, a husband to the widow, a father to the orphan:' and Aldrich and that eminent band of men then in the House must have waited, not without some flutter of expectation, nor yet without some qualms of fear, the issue of the royal appointment. It was just then that James had resolved to carry out a dangerous policy with a high hand, and for this he was ready to harry and corrupt the whole Bench at Westminster Hall. By a rigorous purgation, eleven Judges were secured who would give a voice to the king's infamy. Henceforth James was free to dispense with penal