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on in promoting the Spanish Partition Treaties (14 St. Tr. 223). The two Houses quarreled over the time and method of im peachment, and as the Commons refused to appear on the day appointed to proceed with the evidence, the ministers were acquitted. In 1715 the Whigs retaliated by impeach-

LORD

ing the Tory ministers who had negotiated the Treaty of Utrecht (15 St. Tr. 993). Bolingbroke and Ormond fled to France. After being imprisoned for two years, Oxford was set free in consequence of the inability of the Commons to agree with the Lords upon the mode of procedure. This was the last at tempt at a purely political impeachment.

Meanwhile, however, in 1710, had occurred one of the most conspicuous illustrations of political imbecility to be found in modern English history. The established Church had, of course, as a body, opposed the Revo lution, and it was not slow to observe that succeeding events were tending to impair its

LOVAT.

power and prestige. The Scotch Union in troduced Presbyterianism into Parliament. The act providing for the naturalization of foreign Protestants was certain to swell the ranks of the Non-conformists, and it ex cited, ' moreover, a widespread feeling among the mass of the people against for eigners. The ill-advised prosecution of