Charles II., who did not blush to receive a pension from Louis XIV. for betraying the interests of his country, now came forward in favour of the fugitives--from good nature, or through advice, or in order to please the English Protestants, perhaps from all three motives combined. By an edict, signed at Hampton Court, on the 28th of July, 1681, he declared that he felt obliged by his honour and his conscience, to succour the people who were fleeing into exile. He therefore accorded them letters of naturalization, with all the privileges necessary for the exercise of such trades as would not injure the interests of his kingdom. He engaged that he would ask the next Parliament to naturalize all who should seek refuge in this island, and in the meantime he exempted them from all imposts to which his other subjects were not liable. He authorized them to send their children to the public schools and Universities. He ordered all his officers, both civil and military, to receive them wherever they landed, to give them passports gratuitously, and to furnish such relief as might be necessary for them to travel to their destination. He also instructed the Commissioners of the Treasury, and of the Customs, to let the strangers pass free, with their furniture, their merchandize, and their instruments of trade; and, further, he encouraged charitable persons to assist those who were in want. He also commissioned the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London to receive their requests and present them to him. To this edict there succeeded, before long, an order in Council which granted naturalization to eleven hundred and fifty-four fugitives;[122] and boat after boat arrived freighted with these sufferers. Such sympathy with the persecuted, however just, appears very inconsistent. About a hundred years earlier, the Jesuits had turned the tables on the intolerant Lutherans and Calvinists of the empire, by saying that Catholic sovereigns had as much right to deny religious liberty as Protestant ones;[123] and Louis could have taken sufficient ground for retorting upon Charles after the same fashion. Reports were circulated to the discredit of the refugees--and were met, on the other hand, by friendly certificates from Incumbents and Churchwardens, testifying of them as “sober, harmless, innocent people, such as served God constantly and uniformly, according to the usage and custom of the Church of England.”[124] In 1682, Charles issued briefs to the clergy to make collections for the new comers; and, in this beneficent work, Tillotson, Dean of Canterbury, took part. Beveridge, then a Prebendary in Canterbury Cathedral, from some mistaken scruple--or from coolness towards a foreign Church--objected to reading the brief, as contrary to the rubric. This circumstance brought out Tillotson’s well-known reply, “Doctor, Doctor, charity is above rubrics.”[125] [Sidenote: 1682.]