Among his various acts of infringement, which gave great scandal, even in those degenerate times, was the abuse of the dispensing power--a prerogative he had inherited, but which had never been strictly defined. By means of this, he intended to admit Catholics to all offices in the realm. He began by granting to the whole Roman Catholic body a dispensation from all the statutes which imposed penalties and tests. A general indulgence was proclaimed, and the courts of law were compelled to acknowledge that the right of dispensing had not been infringed. Four of the judges refused to accede to what was plainly illegal. They were dismissed; for, at that time, even judges held office during the pleasure of the king, and not, as in these times, for life. They had not the independence which has ever been so requisite for the bench. Nor would all his counsellors and ministers accede to his design, and those who were refractory were turned out. As soon as a servile bench of judges recognized this outrage on the constitution, four Catholic noblemen were admitted as privy counsellors, and some clergymen, converted to Romanism, were permitted to hold their livings. James even bestowed the deanery of Christ Church, one of the highest dignities in the University of Oxford, on a notorious Catholic, and threatened to do at Cambridge what had been done at Oxford. The bishopric of Oxford was bestowed upon Parker, who was more Catholic than Protestant, and that of Chester was given to a sycophant of no character. James made no secret of his intentions to restore the Catholic religion, and systematically labored to destroy the Established Church. In order to effect this, he created a tribunal, which not materially differed from the celebrated High Commission Court of Elizabeth, and to break up which was one great object of the revolutionists who brought Charles I. to the block--the most odious court ever established by royal despotism in England. The members of this High Commission Court, which James instituted to try all ecclesiastical cases, were, with one or two exceptions, notoriously the most venal and tyrannical of all his agents--Jeffreys, the Chancellor; Crewe, Bishop of Durham; Sprat, Bishop of Rochester; the Earl of Rochester, Lord Treasurer; Sunderland, the Lord President; and Herbert, Chief Justice of the King's Bench. This court summoned Compton, the Bishop of London, to its tribunal, because he had not suspended Dr. Sharp, one of the clergy of London, when requested to do so by the king--a man who had committed no crime, but simply discharged his duty with fidelity. The bishop was suspended from his spiritual functions, and the charge of his diocese was committed to two of his judges. But this court, not content with depriving numerous clergymen of their spiritual functions, because they would not betray their own church, went so far as to sit in judgment on the two greatest corporations in the land,--the Universities of Oxford and