return for her surrender of her ancient claim to compel schismatics into her fold, that she should be required unduly to extend its limits for the purpose of embracing them. It is probable enough that William's eye for an ecclesiastical scruple was not quite as keen as his insight into the principles of civil government and the workings of European policy, for he seems to have been surprised and disappointed at finding that Churchmen and Dissenters, though the Toleration Act was accepted by the former without serious difficulty and by the latter with hearty rejoicings, would neither of them so much as look at his scheme of comprehension. He evidently understood neither the "dissidence of dissent" nor the Anglicanism of the Anglican Communion. The Comprehension Bill had a troubled time of it even in the House of Lords, where it was first introduced, and after some debate in the House of Commons it was shelved. As vainly did William attempt to compose the feud between the Whig and Tory Churchman and Nonconformist by offering, so to speak, a bribe to each of them to tolerate the other. The new oath of allegiance, framed by Parliament for itself, required to be extended to all those classes of persons who had been compelled to take one. Legislation was commenced for that purpose concurrently with the debates over the Comprehension Bill, and the King, according to Burnet, saw here, as he thought, an opportunity of bringing the disputants to a mutually beneficial compromise. In his speech to the Commons on the 16th of March, he signified his wish that in the pending legislation "they would leave room for the admission of all Protestants that were willing and able to serve"--a suggestion which, of course, was directly aimed at the tests then excluding Dissenters from office. And while he pressed this measure of relief upon the Tories, he at the same time invited the Whigs to make a concession to their adversaries by absolving, as he was willing to do, the existing beneficed clergy from the necessity of taking the new oath of allegiance. He begged of the one party not to compel the Nonconformist to choose between offence against conscience and exclusion from civil office, and of the other party not to compel a clergyman to choose between offence against conscience and expulsion from ecclesiastical office; and he imagined that each would find their account in consenting. But no. The Whig was determined to force the oath upon the parson; the Tory was resolved to force the test upon the dissenter. No provision of relief for Nonconformists was introduced into the Comprehension Bill, and the measure itself was shortly afterwards dropped. The Oaths Bill passed in a form which compelled every beneficed clergyman to swear allegiance to the new King and Queen by the 1st of August 1689, on pain of suspension, to be followed on the 1st of February 1690, in the event of the non-juror remaining contumacious, by deprivation.