One of the first measures of the new parliament was the “Occasional Conformity Bill,” the real object of which was to render null the Toleration Act, by providing that all who took the sacrament and the test, as qualifications for office, and afterwards went to the meetings of Dissenters, should be disabled for holding public offices, and should be fined £100, and £5 additional for every day that such person or persons continued in public office after being present at such Dissenting meetings. The Queen’s Tories in the House of Commons carried the bill with a triumphant majority; but, in the House of Lords, King William’s bishops stoutly opposed the measure, and, despite the influence of Marlborough, succeeded in its rejection. When parliament broke up, the Queen told its members that she hoped such of her subjects as had “the _misfortune_ to dissent from the Church of England would rest secure and satisfied in the Act of Toleration, which she was firmly resolved to maintain;” and that those who had the “happiness and advantage to be of _our Church_ might rest assured that she would make it her particular care to encourage and maintain the Church in all its just rights and privileges, and so transmit it securely settled to posterity.”[157] ----- Footnote 157: _Life of Queen Anne_, London, 1721. ----- When parliament re-assembled, in 1703, the rejected “Occasional Conformity Bill” was again brought into the House of Commons, and passed without any considerable opposition, but was again rejected in the House of Lords. In the same year, the Queen, on her birthday, showed her devoted attachment to the Church of England by making a grant of her whole revenue, arising out of the first-fruits and tenths, for augmenting the livings of the poorer clergy. These first-fruits and tenths amounted to about £16,000 a year, and, in the time of Charles II. had been distributed chiefly among his concubines and his illegitimate children. There were now hundreds of clergymen whose livings were not worth more than £20 a year, and thousands whose livings did not exceed £50 a year. Of course, the Queen was well nigh overwhelmed with addresses, thanking her for her royal bounty, and it was difficult to tell whether she was prouder of the title “Queen of England,” than she was of “Nursing-mother to the Church.” This tender care for poor ministers, however, did not extend to other sects of the Protestant communion; for, just at the same time, this royal benefactress allowed the Irish Parliament to stop the paltry grant of £1200 per annum, which had been paid to the poor Presbyterian ministers in Ulster in the reign of her predecessor, King William. In 1704, the “Occasional Conformity Bill” was a third time introduced into the House of Commons, though there was still not the slightest chance of its passing in the House of Lords.