The first question propounded to the Privy Council was whether the Convention should be declared a lawful Parliament, or dissolved and a fresh Parliament summoned in the regular manner by royal writ. The Council advised the former course, and a Bill declaring the Convention a Parliament was at once introduced and passed through the House of Lords. It was opposed in the Commons by the Tories, who hoped that a general election might strengthen their numbers; but the resistance--founded as it was upon mere technical considerations, and with historical precedent against it--was never very formidable; and the Bill passed the Lower House in a few days, and became law. Among its clauses was one providing that no one should, after the 1st of March then next ensuing, sit or vote in either House of Parliament without taking the oaths of allegiance to the new King and Queen, and the Jacobites and ultra-Tories conceived the hope that many peers, bishops, and commoners would find it impossible to reconcile their consciences to this test. As a matter of fact the non-jurors, except among the Episcopal body, to whom Archbishop Sancroft set the example of recusancy, were comparatively few. Even later, when the oath was tendered to the clergy at large, the number of those who found themselves conscientiously unable to take it was but one-twentieth of the whole body.[11] In the interval, however, between the passing of the Act and the day fixed for submission to the test, the great question of the royal revenues was taken up and decided. Certain proceeds of taxation were in those days granted to the Crown either for a fixed term of years or for life. The former, being on the face of them annexed to the regal office, were of course transferable without much difficulty or dispute to the new incumbent of that office; but doubts naturally arose as to the exact legal status of the latter kind of imposts. Some were for interpreting the word "life" as virtually meaning reign, upon which construction the right to exact these taxes had lapsed by the deposition of the sovereign to whom they were granted. Others insisted on an interpretation stricter in one sense and laxer in another, and argued that though William had become entitled to these revenues as King he could only enjoy them during the life of James. In other words, in order to avoid taking liberties with the word "life," they were prepared to behave with far more unbridled license to the word "king." The practical inconvenience of settling revenues on William during the life of James may or may not have weighed more with the Parliament than the theoretical anomaly of treating the former as sovereign for one purpose and the latter as such for another; but anyhow it was tacitly agreed to treat the grant to James as annulled by his so-called abdication. The Commons then voted the sum of £1,200,000 for the current year, one half to be appropriated to the civil list, the other half to the defences of the