That the Declaration was unconstitutional is universally agreed, for a
monarch competent to issue such a document is nothing less than an
absolute ruler. This was, in point of fact, the most audacious of all
attacks of the Stuarts on public freedom. The Anglican party was in
amazement and terror, for it would now be exposed to the free attacks of
its enemies on every side. And though Dissenters appeared to be allowed
relief, what guarantee was there for the sincerity of the Court? It was
notorious that James had been completely subjugated by the Jesuits, for
only a few days before the publication of the Indulgence, that Order had
been honoured with a new mark of his confidence, by appointing as his
confessor an Englishman named Warner, a Jesuit renegade from the
Anglican Church.


_Petition of the Seven Bishops and their Trial_


A meeting of bishops and other eminent divines was held at Lambeth
Palace. The general feeling was that the king's Declaration ought not to
be read in the churches. After long deliberation, preceded by solemn
prayer, a petition embodying the general sense, was written by the
Archbishop with his own hand. The king was assured that the Church still
was, as she had ever been, faithful to the throne. But the Declaration
was illegal, for Parliament had pronounced that the sovereign was not
constitutionally competent to dispense with statutes in matters
ecclesiastical. The Archbishop and six of his suffragans signed the
petition. The six bishops crossed the river to Whitehall, but the
Archbishop, who had long been forbidden the Court, did not accompany
them. James directed that the bishops should be admitted to the royal