Efforts in favour of Nonconformists having thus failed in the Lower House, like movements were uselessly made in the Upper. The King, in a speech delivered on the 16th of March, emphatically recommended Parliament to provide against Papists, so as to “leave room for the admission of all Protestants that are willing and able to serve.”[118] In these words he showed his desire for the alteration of the Test Act. The Test Act had been passed to exclude Papists from holding civil office; and, zealous for the accomplishment of that end, Nonconformists had supported it at the sacrifice of their own interests. There were members in the House of Lords prepared to carry out the King’s wishes. They desired to render all Protestant citizens eligible to serve the State; during the progress of the Allegiance Bill, they supported the introduction of a clause for abolishing the sacramental test. But the Tory Lords were too numerous to allow of its being passed; and some Whig Peers, including the puritan Lord Wharton, recorded a protest against the rejection of the clause. They protested for these reasons--Because a hearty alliance amongst Protestants was a greater security than any test: because the obligation to receive the Sacrament operated against Protestants rather than Papists: because it prevented a thorough Protestant union: and because, what was not required of members of Parliament, ought not to be required of candidates for office. Not discouraged by defeat, one of the Lords proposed another clause, the object of which was to render the celebration of the Lord’s Supper in a Nonconformist place of worship legally equivalent to its celebration in a parish church. This, like the former attempt, failed; and again we find a protest recorded in the Journals, Lord Wharton being again among the protesters. In this protest they amplify what they had said before, and introduce this additional reason--that His Majesty had expressed an earnest desire for the liberty of all his Protestant subjects, and that divers Bishops had professed the same. The majority of the Lords, in the rejection of clauses for the partial repeal of the Test Act, proceeded on the same line with the majority of the Commons, in getting rid of the repeal of the Corporation Act.[119] But another wish rose in the King’s mind, which received support from a majority in the Upper House. It is very well known that he desired to treat the Clergy in general with great lenience, and to make as much allowance as possible for nonjuring scruples. By conceding so much to the High Church party, he aimed at reconciling them to those concessions which, on the other side, he longed to see granted to Nonconformists. He could not secure the latter concessions, but he easily secured the former. The policy of the Lords, both Whig and Tory, both Low Church and High Church, was to discountenance Nonconformity, and to maintain the Episcopalian Establishment; the policy of the High