All Protestants, high and low, had united for some months in one thing--the desire for a Revolution which should put a stop to the reign of prerogative, and place the liberties of the country upon a legal basis. But what exactly was the Revolution to be? Who was to be Ruler in the room of James? As to this pressing subject, opinions ran in divergent lines. The Archbishop, suffering from ill-health, worried by distractions around him, shut himself up in his Palace that cold Christmas-time, and covered closely, with his own neat hand, twenty-five pages of paper, from which we learn how he looked at the politics of the hour. Gazing at the engravings taken from his portrait in Lambeth Palace, we see him--with his simple, honest face, and a close black cap, such as gives the wearer a Puritan look, but for a pair of lawn sleeves sometimes worn--industriously putting down the _pros_ and _cons_ of the puzzle. [Sidenote: CHARACTER OF THE REVOLUTION.] The King is gone. The Government is without a pilot. The captain of a foreign force is at the head of affairs. How is the Government to be settled legally and securely? Shall the commander of the foreign force be declared King, and solemnly crowned? Shall the next heir--the Princess Mary (the Prince of Wales is not mentioned)--be Queen, her husband acquiring an interest in the government through her right? or shall the King be declared incapable of personal government, the commander being made _Custos Regni_, who shall administer affairs in the King’s name? “I am clearly of opinion,” writes the perplexed critic, “that the last way is the best, and that a settlement cannot be made so justifiable and lasting any other way.”[85] We cannot proceed through the prolix dissertation in which Sancroft endeavours to support his conclusion. Every word proves his simplicity and conscientiousness, but a weaker set of reasons, and a set of reasons more pedantically expressed, one rarely meets with. Both the moral and intellectual sides of the man’s character are apparent throughout. But for the theory of the divine right of kings, and the subject’s duty of passive obedience, which acted as a spell upon his mind, it would be impossible to conceive how a person of ordinary intelligence could advocate such a scheme as he did. Before long it must have been found unmanageable, leading to a second Revolution. While professedly concocted for the purpose of maintaining James’ kingly rights, it stripped him of all power; and curiously enough, as appears on a moment’s reflection, it is open to precisely the objections which had been brought against the Puritan Commonwealth’s-men, who administered government against the King in the King’s own name. To call James sovereign, with William as _Custos Regni_, was to use words in the way Pym and Hampden and Cromwell had done. What makes Sancroft’s conduct the more inconsistent is, that he and his party supported the Act of Uniformity, which