Page:VCH London 1.djvu/473

 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY Parliament of Queen Anne, elected 1702, a Bill to prohibit occasional con- formity, and incidentally to disfranchise all nonconforming freemen of cities and boroughs, was passed by the Commons in three successive years, but on each occasion was rejected by the Lords." The Parliament which sat from 1705 to 17 ID was favourable to religious liberty," but the opposite party raised an electioneering cry of ' The Church in Danger,' and utilized their willing tool, Sacheverell, to excite the populace. As early as 1702 the violent harangues of this man " had provoked Defoe's celebrated satire, The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, for which the author was fined and pilloried. °^ The ill-advised prosecution of Sacheverell for his fanatical sermon preached at St. Paul's on 5 November 1709 *' infuriated the rabble, and on 28 February 1709—10, the second day of his trial, an organized mob plundered and burned several meeting-houses. The buildings attacked were Dr. Wright's, in Meeting-house Court, Blackfriars ; Mr. Thomas Bradbury's, in Fetter Lane ; Mr. D. Burgess's, New Court, Carey Street, whence the fittings were carried and burnt in Lincoln's Inn Fields ; Dr. Jabez Earle's, Hanover Street, Long Acre ; Mr. Thomas Taylor's, in Leather Lane ; and Mr. Hamilton's, in Clerkenwell. St. John's Parochial Chapel, Clerkenwell, was also wrecked, the rioters mistaking it for a meeting-house."" In Queen Anne's last Parliament, elected 17 10, the illiberal party had a large majority, which in 171 1 carried a slightly mitigated edition of the Occasional Conformity Bill." It was hoped by thus driving from office all dissenting mayors, aldermen, and magistrates, to facilitate the succession of the Pretender ; but the majority of those affected frustrated the scheme by ceasing to attend public worship. An instance is afforded in the case of Sir Thomas Abney ; Dr. Isaac Watts (successor of Chauncey at Mark Lane, afterwards of Bury Street, St. Mary Axe) became his chaplain, and preached to him and his family in their own house.'* Three years later the rising hopes of the Jacobite faction prompted the last effort to suppress noncon- formity by law. The Schism Act, introduced 12 May and passed 23 June 1714,^^ not only aimed at extinguishing the dissenting academies, but forbade all persons to teach anything except reading, writing, arithmetic, mechanical geometry, and navigation, without a licence from a bishop, which was only to be granted on a declaration of conformity. The licence was to be forfeited if the teacher attended any conventicle, and the provisions of the Act were to be enforced by three months' imprisonment. The Act was to come into force on i August, but the death of the queen on that very day and the peaceful accession of George I rendered it useless to its promoters ; it was never enforced, and about four years later was quietly rescinded.^* The most prominent dissenting minister in London at this time was Thomas Bradbury, of Fetter Lane. His grandson. Dr. Winter, is responsible for the statement that, after attempts to bribe him into conformity, some highly-placed Jacobites plotted his assassination, and only failed through the " Cobbett, Par/. Hist. v, passim ; Burnet, Otfn Time (ed. 1823), v, 49-54, 105-8. " Ibid. 235-8. " Sacheverell, Political Union, &c. «* W. Wilson, Life of Defoe, ii, 67-8. '' Sacheverell, Perils of False Brethren. ™ Maitland, Hist. ofLond. i, 506 ; W. Wilson, Hist, of Diss. Churches, passim. " Stat. 10 Anne, cap. 2, sec. I, 3, 4. " Calamy, Hist. Acct. ii, 243-6. " Com. Joum. J2, 27 May ; I, 23 June ; Lords' fount. 4, 7, 9, II, 14, 15 June. '* Cobbett, Pari. Hist, vii, 567-89. I 385 49