Innocent XI. refused to gratify James in a matter which he had much at heart. James wished to procure a mitre for a Jesuit, named Petre, but as the elevation of the dignitary to the Episcopate was contrary to the rules of the Order, James sought for him a red hat. But neither mitre nor hat could be obtained. The circumstance mortified the Monarch, and it certainly appeared as a very ungrateful return for all his devotion to the interests of Rome; but he resolved to give Petre a seat at the Privy Council table, for which, indeed, he had designed the mitre or the hat to serve as a preparation. He meant to pave the way to the civil distinction of his Roman Catholic favourites, by first obtaining for them ecclesiastical honours; and when the nation heard that a Jesuit had been made a Privy Councillor, the wrath excited by the public recognition of Archbishop D’Adda increased tenfold. [Sidenote: 1687.] Parliament had shown nothing like independence in reference to either ecclesiastical or political affairs, and had resembled a French Bed of Justice, convened to register Royal decrees; yet James dissolved it on the 4th of July, the very day succeeding the Nuncio’s reception. The despotic King now took affairs entirely into his own hands, and speedily rushed headlong to destruction. Two events completed the catastrophe--his attack upon the liberties of Cambridge and Oxford, and his second Declaration of Indulgence. These events at the same instant accomplished his own fall, and saved the Protestantism of England.