Turner, Bishop of Ely, another of the nonjuring band, whose character has been indicated already, whose Jacobitism is unquestionable, and who supported the Archbishop in his defiant course, wrote to him on Ascension Day, 1689, a letter in which he refers to Ken, and the doubts felt respecting him. “I must needs say, the sooner we meet our brother of Bath the better, for I must no longer in duty conceal from your Grace--though I beseech you to keep it in terms of a secret--that this very good man is, I fear, warping from us, and the true interests of the Church of England, towards a compliance with the new Government.”[175] [Sidenote: NONJURORS.] Frampton, Bishop of Gloucester, coincided with Ken in his moderation; and if the rest had resembled them, possibly a practical adjustment of the controversy might have been reached. He is described as a gentle, amiable man, unfitted for an Episcopal position during a season of political trouble. After his deprivation he pursued a quiet and inoffensive course, without giving any umbrage to the Government.[176] Sancroft, Lloyd, and Turner were men of a different mould. [Sidenote: 1689.] During the period of the Bishops’ remaining in suspension, their case excited immense interest--friends loudly expressing sympathy, opponents loudly expressing disapproval. The press was employed. Apologies were published; answers were returned. On the one hand the services of the Seven in the cause of liberty were gratefully rehearsed, their sufferings pitifully depicted, their temper under trials enthusiastically extolled, and the sacredness of oaths, as asserted in their conduct, earnestly enforced. Connected with this vindication and eulogy, were mystical allusions to the perfect number of the Episcopal confessors, the Seven imprisoned being irreverently compared to the burning lamps before the throne of God. On the other hand, this play of fancy met with sarcasm and ridicule; the old arguments for the new oaths came into hackneyed use; the patient temper of the Bishops failed to excite any longer much admiration, and a ridiculous panegyric pronounced upon them for “the holy tears” they wept, like “trees of sovereign balm, to cure the wounds of their Royal enemy,” only aroused mockery, whilst their suffering and services were depreciated by a reference to the story of Alexander the Great. Alexander had coats of armour made for men and horses three times the ordinary size, and left behind on the banks of the River Indus, to make succeeding ages believe that his soldiery were of gigantic bigness. So, it was said, the setting forth a few days’ imprisonment in the Royal palace of the Tower,--under the notion of its being a prison such as confined the primitive Christians,--detracted from the real glory gained by the Bishops, since everybody saw the vast disproportion between the dungeons of Diocletian and the Tower of London.[177]