The Stuarts had solemnly vowed to rule England in the Reformed and Protestant faith, but within a quarter of a century of their restoration, the Church of Rome had not only been allowed by them to recover many of its privileges, but Roman Catholicism had become the religion of the King and court. James had set aside the Test Act, a measure passed by Parliament in 1663, which required every individual in the civil and military employment of the State to take the oath of supremacy and allegiance, to declare against the doctrine of transubstantiation, and to declare in favour of the doctrine of the Sacrament as taught by the Church of England. By annulling this act James re-admitted Roman Catholics to any office in the country, both in civil and military situations. Four Roman Catholic peers were added to the Privy Council; priests and Jesuits flocked into the country in great numbers, and Mass was publicly celebrated in the Chapel Royal. London again saw the almost forgotten costumes of the different religious orders, the brown-robed Franciscans, and the white-robed Carmelites, whilst the Jesuit priests opened a school at the Savoy. At the same time the King added largely to the standing army, and a camp of thirteen thousand men was established at Hounslow, destined, if James thought necessary, to keep the capital in check. Whilst James was thus trying to coerce his subjects to the Roman Catholic religion, the Protestants across the Channel were being persecuted by Louis; for by a strange coincidence—if not by a prearranged plan—the same year that saw the violation of the Test Act in England, witnessed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in France, with the result that thousands of French reformers were driven from their homes and crossed to England—a living proof of the curse that a bigoted and arbitrary ruler could be to his subjects. [Illustration: _Contemporary Portraits of_ _The Duke of Monmouth & others._] In the succeeding year, 1686, James attempted to gag the English Church. The King had appointed two Roman Catholic priests to high preferments—Massey to the Deanery of Christ Church, and Parker to the See of Oxford; and when the English clergy protested from their pulpits against these appointments, James summoned an Ecclesiastical Commission, at the head of which he placed Jeffreys. The first action of this Commission was to suspend Compton, Bishop of London, who had refused to suspend the Dean of Norwich (Sharpe), one of the offending preachers against the Papist appointments made by the King. In 1687 Oxford had the high honour of bringing about the Revolution, which saved England from a fresh tyranny and led to the final overthrow of the Stuart princes.