As the great Revolution under William I. was perfected by the Coronation at Westminster on Christmas-day, 1066, so the great Revolution under William III. was perfected by the Coronation in the same place on the 11th of April, 1689. In both cases certain religious rites were necessary to the completeness of the new Monarch’s inauguration, but in both cases they were celebrated only as a solemn ratification of a choice made by the national voice. It is curious to notice, that in addition to the coincidence of names in the case of the authors of the two most momentous revolutionary successions to the English crown, there is a further coincidence: each arrived on the southern shores of England as an invader, and then became the choice of the people; and neither of them rested on the right of conquest as the basis of power. [Sidenote: COMPREHENSION.] At the time when the Allegiance and Coronation Oaths were under discussion, two other important subjects, immediately connected with Ecclesiastical History, occupied Parliamentary attention. The one was the widening of admission into the Church, the other was the concession to Dissenters of liberty to worship according to conviction: both measures had been repeatedly taken up and repeatedly laid down during the reign of Charles II. The steps in reference to Comprehension may be conveniently considered first. The Primate Sancroft, it is alleged,[126] looked favourably in that direction, amidst the excitement to liberal feeling, which sprung up on the eve of the Revolution: certainly at the beginning of the year 1689, Lloyd, the Bishop of St. Asaph, Tillotson, Dean of Canterbury, Sharp, Dean of Norwich, and Dr. Tenison, met at the house of Stillingfleet, Dean of St. Paul’s, as we are informed by Patrick, Prebendary of Westminster--who was present on the occasion--to consult about such concessions as might bring in Dissenters to communion, “for which,” Patrick says, “the Bishop of St. Asaph told us, he had the Archbishop of Canterbury’s leave. We agreed that a Bill should be prepared, to be offered by the Bishops, and we drew up the matter of it in ten or eleven heads.”[127] Coincident with the time when such proposals were sufficiently matured to be laid before Parliament, but not coincident with the particular purpose and method which these and other Divines had in view, was the publication of a draft, by some irresponsible person, for the universal accommodation of Dissenters, and the bringing of all parties into communion with the Established Church. This scheme, which bore the title of an amicable reconciliation, soon dropped into the limbo of quixotic plans, but it made some noise at the time, and is sufficiently curious to be worth a few words. [Sidenote: 1689.]