The temper of the deposed primate was very different. He seems to
have been under a complete delusion as to his own importance. The
immense popularity which he had enjoyed three years before, the
prayers and tears of the multitudes who had plunged into the
Thames to implore his blessing, the enthusiasm with which the
sentinels of the Tower had drunk his health under the windows of
his prison, the mighty roar of joy which had risen from Palace
Yard on the morning of his acquittal, the triumphant night when
every window from Hyde Park to Mile End had exhibited seven
candles, the midmost and tallest emblematical of him, were still
fresh in his recollection; nor had he the wisdom to perceive that
all this homage had been paid, not to his person, but to that
religion and to those liberties of which he was, for a moment, the
representative. The extreme tenderness with which the new
government had long persisted in treating him seems to have
confirmed him in his error. That a succession of conciliatory
messages was sent to him from Kensington, that he was offered
terms so liberal as to be scarcely consistent with the dignity of
the Crown and the welfare of the State, that his cold and
uncourteous answers could not tire out the royal indulgence, that,
in spite of the loud clamours of the Whigs, and of the
provocations daily given by the Jacobites, he was residing,
fifteen months after deprivation, in the metropolitan palace,
these things seemed to him to indicate not the lenity but the
timidity of the ruling powers. He appears to have flattered
himself that they would not dare to eject him. The news,
therefore, that his see had been filled threw him into a passion
which lasted as long as his life, and which hurried him into many
foolish and unseemly actions. Tillotson, as soon as he was