A story is also told that Roman Catholics were at the time eagerly expecting assistance from the French, and a priest with his friends, stationed on a watch-tower, having descried white flags on the men of war as they hove in sight, prepared an entertainment for the earnestly-desired guests, and proceeded to chant a _Te Deum_, in gratitude for their arrival. They were soon undeceived, and the fare provided for the French was enjoyed by the Dutch.[47] The army next day marched on to Exeter, the officers, like the soldiers, wet to the skin, having neither change of raiment, nor food, nor horses, nor servants, nor beds--the baggage still remaining in the ships. But expressions of sympathy, perhaps timorously conveyed, cheered them somewhat on this dreary day; and stories are still circulated amongst the Nonconformist families of the neighbourhood, of ancestors who watched the landing, and spoke of “seeing the country people rolling apples down the hill-side to the soldiers.”[48] [Sidenote: THE CRISIS.] The progress was slow, and the stay at the Western capital long. Thomas Lamplugh, the Bishop who had approved of the Declaration and of the conduct of His Majesty’s servile Judges, showed his fidelity to James by rushing up to London, where he was rewarded with the Archiepiscopal throne of York. York had been left vacant for more than two years and a half, with the design, it was said, of being ultimately occupied by a Roman Catholic. A Popish Bishop had been settled there, with a title _in partibus infidelium_, whose crosier and utensils were seized after the landing of the Prince of Orange.[49] The Dean of Exeter also fled in alarm, and His Highness took up his abode in the deserted Deanery. The Prebendaries refused to meet him, or to occupy their stalls, when he marched in military state through the western portal, well studded with statues of saints and kings; and proceeding up the nave, with its exquisite minstrels’ gallery, ascended the steps of the choir, passed under the beautiful screen, and took his seat on the Episcopal throne,--the ornamentation of which in ebonlike oak, without a single nail in the curious structure, so admirably contrasts with the pale arches and the vaulted roof. As soon as the chanting of the _Te Deum_ had ceased, Burnet read His Highness’s Declaration, which proved a signal for such of the clergy and choristers as had ventured on being present, to quit the edifice. At the end of the reading the Doctor cried, “God save the Prince of Orange!” to which some of the congregation responded with a hearty Amen. [Sidenote: 1688.]