Whilst Nonconformists were suffering from the Conventicle Act, the King recurred to his scheme for granting indulgences; in favour of which Lord Arlington, on behalf of the Catholics, and the Lord Privy Seal, who was interested for the Presbyterians, plied an efficacious argument. They urged that, frightened by recent laws and the zeal of Parliament in the cause of the Church, Dissenters would gladly compound for liberty at a reasonable rate, by which means a good yearly revenue might be raised, and concord and tranquillity be established throughout the kingdom. The King caught at this reasoning: a Bill was prepared, in which Catholics as well as Protestants were included;--a schedule having been drawn up, computing what they would be willing to pay. The Bill entrusted the King with a dispensing power,--and the Royal origin of the measure becoming known to the Peers, they offered no opposition to the first reading; but afterwards, the Lord Treasurer, and many of the Bishops, sharply opposed it, and Clarendon threw the weight of his influence into the same scale. In a courtier-like speech, reported by himself, he upheld Charles' Protestantism, and cleverly insinuated that the question was not "whether the King were worthy of that trust, but whether that trust were worthy of the King,"--that it would inevitably expose him "to trouble and vexation," and "subject him to daily and hourly importunities; which must be so much the more uneasy to a nature of so great bounty and generosity,"--and that nothing was so ungrateful to him as to be obliged to refuse. Even the Duke of York expressed dissatisfaction--influenced, as is presumed, by the Lord Chancellor. Few spoke in favour of the Bill, and it was agreed that there should be no question as to its being committed--"which was the most civil way of rejecting it, and left it to be no more called for." The only results were, the mortification of His Majesty, and the augmentation of bitterness against the Roman Catholics.[455] [Sidenote: CONVOCATION.] [Sidenote: 1665.]