[117] "The king now finding that nothing which had the least appearance of novelty, though never so well warranted by the prerogative, would go down with the people, unless it had the parliamentary stamp on it, resolved to try if he could get the penal laws and test taken off by that authority." _Life of James_, ii. 134. But it seems by M. Mazure's authorities, that neither the king nor Lord Sunderland wished to convoke a parliament, which was pressed forward by the eager catholics, ii. 399. [118] _Life of James_, p. 139. [119] Ralph, 965, 966. The object was to let in the dissenters. This was evidently a desperate game: James had ever mortally hated the sectaries as enemies to monarchy; and they were irreconcilably adverse to all his schemes. [120] Burnet; _Life of James_, 169; D'Oyly's _Life of Sancroft_, i. 326. Lord Halifax, as is supposed, published a letter of advice to the dissenters, warning them against a coalition with the court, and promising all indulgence from the church. Ralph, 950; _Somers Tracts_, viii. 50. [121] Ralph, 967; Lonsdale, p. 15. "It is to be observed," says the author of this memoir, "that most part of the offices in the nation, as justices of the peace, deputy-lieutenants, mayors, aldermen, and freemen of towns, are filled with Roman catholics and dissenters, after having suffered as many regulations as were necessary for that purpose. And thus stands the state of this nation in this month of September 1688."--P. 34. Notice is given in the _London Gazette_ for December 11, 1687, that the lists of justices and deputy-lieutenants would be revised. [122] _Life of James_, 183. [123] Mazure, ii. 302. [124] The reader will find almost everything relative to the subject in that incomparable repertory, the _State Trials_, xii. 1; also some notes in the Oxford edition of Burnet. [125] Parker's _Reasons for Abrogating the Test_ are written in such a tone as to make his readiness to abandon the protestant side very manifest, even if the common anecdotes of him should be exaggerated. [126] It seems, however, confirmed by Mazure, ii. 390, with the addition, that Petre, like a second Wolsey, aspired also to be chancellor. The pope, however, would not make him a bishop, against the rules of the order of jesuits to which he belonged. _Id._ 241. James then tried, through Lord Castlemain, to get him a cardinal's hat, but with as little success.