The Revolution had been accomplished. The rejoicings throughout the land
were enthusiastic. Still more cordial was the rejoicing among the Dutch
when they learned that the first minister of their Commonwealth had been
raised to a throne. James had, during the last year of his reign, been
even more hated in England by the Tories than by the Whigs; and not
without cause; for to the Whigs he was only an enemy; and to the Tories
he had been a faithless and thankless friend.

One misfortune of the new king, which some reactionaries imputed to him
as a crime, was his bad English. He spoke our language, but not well.
Our literature he was incapable of enjoying or understanding. He never
once appeared in the theatre. The poets who wrote Pindaric verse in his
praise complained that their flights of sublimity were beyond his
comprehension. But his wife did her best to supply what was wanting. She
was excellently qualified to be the head of the Court. She was English
by birth and also in her tastes and feelings. The stainless purity of
her private life and the attention she paid to her religious duties
discourages scandal as well as vice.

The year 1689 is not less important in the ecclesiastical than in the
civil history of England, for in that year was granted the first legal
indulgence to Dissenters. And then also the two chief sections within
the Anglican communion began to be called the High Church and Low Church
parties. The Low Churchmen stood between the nonconformists and the
rigid conformists. The famous Toleration Bill passed both Houses with
little debate. It approaches very near the ideal of a great English law,
the sound principle of which undoubtedly is that mere theological error
ought not to be punished by the civil magistrate.