The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 4Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
History
The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 4
Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
Great Britain -- History -- James II, 1685-1688; Great Britain -- History -- William and Mary, 1689-1702
to what he thought his duty, and yet constantly became more and more
indulgent to those whose views of duty differed from his. [53]
Sancroft was of a very different temper. He had, indeed, as little to
complain of as any man whom a revolution has ever hurled down from an
exalted station. He had at Fressingfield, in Suffolk, a patrimonial
estate, which, together with what he had saved during a primacy of
twelve years, enabled him to live, not indeed as he had lived when he
was the first peer of Parliament, but in the style of an opulent country
gentleman. He retired to his hereditary abode; and there he passed
the rest of his life in brooding over his wrongs. Aversion to the
Established Church became as strong a feeling in him as it had been in
Martin Marprelate. He considered all who remained in communion with her
as heathens and publicans. He nicknamed Tillotson the Mufti. In the room
which was used as a chapel at Fressingfield no person who had taken
the oaths, or who attended the ministry of any divine who had taken
the oaths, was suffered to partake of the sacred bread and wine. A
distinction, however, was made between two classes of offenders. A
layman who remained in communion with the Church was permitted to be
present while prayers were read, and was excluded only from the highest
of Christian mysteries. But with clergymen who had sworn allegiance to
the Sovereigns in possession Sancroft would not even pray. He took care
that the rule which he had laid down should be widely known, and, both
by precept and by example, taught his followers to look on the most
orthodox, the most devout, the most virtuous of those who acknowledged
William's authority with a feeling similar to that with which the
Jew regarded the Samaritan. [54] Such intolerance would have been
reprehensible, even in a man contending for a great principle. But
Sancroft was contending merely for a name. He was the author of the
scheme of Regency. He was perfectly willing to transfer the whole kingly
power from James to William. The question which, to this smallest and
sourest of minds, seemed important enough to justify the excommunicating
of ten thousand priests and of five millions of laymen was, whether the
magistrate to whom the whole kingly power was transferred should assume
the kingly title. Nor could Sancroft bear to think that the animosity
which he had excited would die with himself. Having done all that he
could to make the feud bitter, he determined to make it eternal. A list
of the divines who had been ejected from their benefices was sent by him
to Saint Germains with a request that James would nominate two who might
keep up the episcopal succession. James, well pleased, doubtless, to see
another sect added to that multitude of sects which he had been taught
to consider as the reproach of Protestantism, named two fierce and
uncompromising nonjurors, Hickes and Wagstaffe, the former recommended
by Sancroft, the latter recommended by Lloyd, the ejected Bishop of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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