“Were I,” said John Wesley, “to write my own life, I should begin it before I was born, merely for the purpose of mentioning a disagreement between my father and mother. ‘Sukey,’ said my father to my mother one day after family prayer, ‘why did you not say _amen_ this morning to the prayer for the king?’ ‘Because,’ said she, ‘I do not believe the Prince of Orange to be king.’ ‘If that be the case,’ said he, ‘you and I must part; for if we have two kings, we must have two beds.’ My mother was inflexible. My father went immediately to his study; and, after spending some time with himself, set out for London, where, being _convocation man_ for the diocese of Lincoln, he remained without visiting his own house for the remainder of the year. On March 8th, in the following year, 1702, King William died; and as both my father and mother were agreed as to the legitimacy of Queen Anne’s title, the cause of their misunderstanding ceased. My father returned to Epworth, and conjugal harmony was restored.”[151] ----- Footnote 151: Clarke’s _Wesley Family_. ----- Mr Wesley’s own written account of this affair is the following:—“The year before King William died, my father observed my mother did not say amen to the prayer for the king. She said she could not, for she did not believe the Prince of Orange was king. He vowed he would never cohabit with her till she did. He then took his horse and rode away; nor did she hear anything of him for a twelvemonth. He then came back and lived with her as before. But I fear his vow was not forgotten before God.”[152] ----- Footnote 152: _Methodist Mag._, 1784, p. 606. ----- There may be the merest modicum of truth in this strange story; but the greater part of it is unfounded. We grant that Mrs Wesley held the doctrine of the “divine right of kings;” and holding that, of course, she regarded the Revolution of 1688 as a royal wrong, and considered William of Orange a usurper. Of this there can be no doubt. Writing in the year 1709, she says:—“Whether they did well, in driving a prince from his hereditary throne, I leave to their own consciences to determine; though I cannot tell how to think that a king of England can ever be accountable to his subjects for any maladministrations or abuse of power; but as he derives his power from God, so to Him only he must answer for his using it. But still I make a great difference between those who entered into the confederacy against their prince, and those who, knowing nothing of the contrivance, and so consequently not consenting to it, only submitted to the present government. But whether the praying for a usurper, and vindicating his usurpations after he has the throne, be not participating in his sins, is easily determined.”[153] ----- Footnote 153: Kirk’s _Mother of the Wesleys_. -----