not merely to civil and military, but to spiritual, offices. By
means of the ecclesiastical supremacy he hoped to make the
Anglican clergy his instruments for the destruction of their own
religion.

This scheme developed itself by degrees. It was not thought safe
to begin by granting to the whole Roman Catholic body a
dispensation from all statutes imposing penalties and tests. For
nothing was more fully established than that such a dispensation
was illegal. The Cabal had, in 1672, put forth a general
Declaration of Indulgence. The Commons, as soon as they met, had
protested against it. Charles the Second had ordered it to be
cancelled in his presence, and had, both by his own mouth and by
a written message, assured the Houses that the step which had
caused so much complaint should never be drawn into precedent. It
would have been difficult to find in all the Inns of Court a
barrister of reputation to argue in defence of a prerogative
which the Sovereign, seated on his throne in full Parliament, had
solemnly renounced a few years before. But it was not quite so
clear that the King might not, on special grounds, grant
exemptions to individuals by name. The first object of James,
therefore, was to obtain from the courts of common law an
acknowledgment that, to this extent at least, he possessed the
dispensing power.

But, though his pretensions were moderate when compared with
those which he put forth a few months later, he soon found that
he had against him almost the whole sense of Westminster Hall.
Four of the Judges gave him to understand that they could not, on
this occasion, serve his purpose; and it is remarkable that all