Note 586 — Chapter XI

Clarendon admits that this could not have been done till the former parliament was dissolved. 97. This means, of course, on the supposition that the king's word was to be broken. "The malignity towards the church," he says, "seemed increasing, and to be greater than at the coming in of the king." Pepys, in his Diary, has several sharp remarks on the misconduct and unpopularity of the bishops, though himself an episcopalian even before the restoration. "The clergy are so high that all people I meet with do protest against their practice." August 31, 1660. "I am convinced in my judgment, that the present clergy will never heartily go down with the generality of the commons of England; they have been so used to liberty and freedom, and they are so acquainted with the pride and debauchery of the present clergy. He [Mr. Blackburn, a nonconformist] did give me many stories of the affronts which the clergy receive in all parts of England from the gentry and ordinary persons of the parish." November 9, 1663. The opposite party had recourse to the old weapons of pious fraud. I have a tract containing twenty-seven instances of remarkable judgments, all between June 1660, and April 1661, which befell divers persons for reading the common prayer or reviling godly ministers. This is entitled Annus Mirabilis; and, besides the above twenty-seven, attests so many prodigies, that the name is by no means misapplied. The bishops made large fortunes by filling up leases. Burnet, 260. And Clarendon admits them to have been too rapacious, though he tries to extenuate. P. 48.