As soon as the Lower House proceeded to business, the choice of a Prolocutor was the first step. On the 21st of November, Sharp--who had in the Deanery of Canterbury succeeded Tillotson, now made Dean of St. Paul’s--proposed as Prolocutor his distinguished predecessor, who was a friend of the King, a favourite at Court, a man of prudence and moderation, and a promoter of the scheme of Comprehension. But Tillotson was rejected by two to one in favour of Jane. Nobody could mistake the significancy of the choice. It would appear that personal feeling had some influence in it. The Earls of Clarendon and Rochester are accused of having intrigued against Tillotson from resentment towards his patrons, the King and Queen--the latter of them, although their near relative, not having raised them to any high employments in the State. Moreover, it had become known, that Tillotson was intended by William to be Sancroft’s successor, as soon as Sancroft’s deposition could be legally accomplished. This circumstance stung the mind of Compton, who, on account of his former relation to the Queen as her tutor, and the signal service he had rendered at the Revolution, not to mention his noble rank, considered he had a claim superior to that of the Dean. Unworthy motives are often attributed to men upon insufficient grounds, and I am unable to discover the reasons for Tillotson’s unfavourable opinion of Compton; but as Tillotson was not likely to have adopted suspicions without reason, it is probable that Compton had something to do with the rejection of Tillotson as a candidate for the Prolocutorship. Knowing what human nature is, one does not wonder that Compton was annoyed at Tillotson being preferred to him; yet it should be remembered that if Compton was mortified by the Royal preference for Tillotson, it did not at present induce him to abandon the Liberal party. When Jane the Prolocutor was presented to Compton as President of the Upper Chamber, in the room of the absent Primate, he finished a speech upon the perfection of the Church, and the mischief of any change in it, with the words, “_Nolumus leges Angliæ mutari_,” in allusion, it is inferred, to Compton’s having adopted that motto for the colours of his regiment, when he had played the part of a colonel. The Bishop, in his answer, indicated his adherence to the opinions and measures he had before proposed, by saying to the Clergy, that “they ought to endeavour a temper in those things that are not essential in religion, thereby to open the door of salvation to a multitude of straying Christians; that it must needs be their duty to show the same indulgence and charity to the Dissenters under King William, which some of the Bishops and Clergy had promised to them in their addresses to King James.”[162] [Sidenote: CONVOCATION.]