was put forward the House of Commons had burned by the common hangman.

What really defeated the Nonjurors' claims was commonsense. Much the
ablest attack upon their position was Stillingfleet's defence of the
policy employed in filling up the sees vacated by deprivation; and it is
remarkable that the theory he employs is to insist that unless the
lawfulness of what had been done is admitted, the Nonjuror's position is
inevitable. "If it be unlawful to succeed a deprived bishop," he
wrote,[11] "then he is the bishop of the diocese still: and then the law
that deprives him is no law, and consequently the king and Parliament
that made that law no king and Parliament: and how can this be
reconciled with the Oath of Allegiance, unless the Doctor can swear
allegiance to him who is no King and hath no authority to govern." All
this the Nonjurors would have admitted, and the mere fact that it could
be used as argument against them is proof that they were out of touch
with the national temper. What they wanted was a legal revolution which
is in the nature of things impossible. We may regret that the oath was
deemed essential, and feel that it might not have been so stoutly
pressed. But the leaders of a revolution "tread a path of fire"; and the
fault lay less at the door of the civil government than in the fact that
this was an age when men acted on their principles. William and his
advisers, with the condition of Ireland and Scotland a cause for
agitation, with France hostile, with treason and plot not absent from
the episcopate itself, had no easy task; what, in the temper of the
time, gives most cause for consideration, is the moderate spirit in
which they accomplished it.

[Footnote 11: _A Vindication of their Majesties' Authority to fill
the Sees of the Deprived Bishops_ (1691).]