spoke, and the Lords Huntingdon, Plymouth, Guildford, and Jefferies, who protested, against the bill. Burnet affirms, that those who wished well to the Act were glad to have it passed any way, and so would not examine the limitations that were in it, and which they thought might be considered afterwards. ‘We reckoned it,’ says Burnet, ‘a great point carried that we had now a law on our side for a Protestant successor.’ The law was stoutly protested against by the Duchess of Savoy, grand-daughter of Charles I. The protest did not trouble the King, who despatched the Act to the Electress-dowager, and the Garter to her son, by the hands of the Earl of Macclesfield. The earl was a fitting bearer of so costly and significant a present. He had been attached to the service of the mother of Sophia, and was highly esteemed by the Electress-dowager herself. The earl had no especial commission beyond that which enjoined him to deliver the Act, nor was he dignified by any official appellation. He was neither ambassador, legate, plenipotentiary, nor envoy. He had with him, however, a most splendid suite; which was in some respects strangely constituted, for among its members was the famous Toland, whose book in support of rationality as applied to religion had been publicly burnt by the hangman, in Ireland. The welcome to this body of gentlemen was right royal. It may be said that the Electoral family had neither cared for the dignity now rendered probable for them, nor in any way toiled or intrigued to bring it within their grasp; but it is certain that their joy was great when the Earl of Macclesfield appeared on the frontier of the Electorate with the Act in one hand and the Garter in the other. He and his suite were met there with a welcome of extraordinary magnificence, betokening ample appreciation of the double gift he brought with him. He himself seemed elevated by his mission, for he was in his general deportment little distinguished by courtly manners or by ceremonious bearing; but it was observed that, on this occasion, nothing could have been more becoming than the way in which he acquitted himself of an office which brought a whole family within view of succession to a royal and powerful throne.