The Bishops, considering that a scandal had been brought upon the Church, published a declaration condemnatory both of the culprits’ papers and the Clergymen’s conduct. The papers they charged with making a favourable mention of so foul a thing as the assassination of His Majesty; and the Clergymen’s conduct they denounced as insolent, and without precedent either in the English Church or in any other.[286] All the Bishops in London signed this document, including Crew of Durham, and Sprat of Rochester, who, from their past career, were still suspected of Jacobite tendencies. Collier, whose boldness equalled his learning, returned to the charge, and from the depths of his obscurity re-proclaimed the doctrine of the imposition of hands as scriptural, and consonant with patristic teaching. He also pleaded on its behalf, in such a case as the one in question, no less a precedent than the conduct of Bishop Sanderson, oddly enough putting the Prelate in the place of the traitor under the fatal beam. “This eminent casuist,” says Collier, “about a day before his death, desired his chaplain, Mr. Pullin, to give him absolution; and at his performing that office, he pulled off his cap that Mr. Pullin might lay his hand upon his bare head.”[287] [Sidenote: 1696.] Collier was the leading spirit in this transaction, and he willingly accepted the chief responsibility; yet he continued to hide himself, and finally escaped the constable’s clutches. His two companions, after a true Bill had been found against them by the Grand Jury of Middlesex, were set at liberty; and it is a question whether they could have been legally convicted of the commission of any crime against the law of the land--for absolution at the point of death, by the imposition of hands, whatever might be thought of it in a religious point of view, could not be regarded as a political offence; and absolving such men, although it looked like sympathy in their enterprise, could scarcely bring the absolvers within the compass of the statute of treason. Another conspirator’s name gathered round it ecclesiastical complications. Sir John Fenwick, an active person amongst the numerous plotters against William, fell into the hands of justice in the month of June. A letter, from the Duke of Shrewsbury to William III., indicates what thoughts were entertained of this conspirator, and of the views of certain people in France at that juncture. [Sidenote: JACOBITES.] “I am not acquainted with the particulars my Lord Steward has sent your Majesty from Sir John Fenwick; he is generally reputed a fearful man, and though now he may not offer to say all, yet beginning to treat is no contradiction to that character. I am confident he knows what, if he will discover, may be much more valuable than his life. If he were well managed, possibly he might lay open a scene that would facilitate the business the next winter, which, without some such miracle, I doubt will be difficult enough.