Note 191 — Chapter XV · ON THE REIGN OF WILLIAM III.

Ralph, 418. See the Life of James, 501. It contains chiefly an absolute promise of pardon, a declaration that he would protect and defend the church of England as established by law, and secure to its members all the churches, universities, schools, and colleges, together with its immunities, rights, and privileges, a promise not to dispense with the test, and to leave the dispensing power in other matters to be explained and limited by parliament, to give the royal assent to bills for frequent parliaments, free elections, and impartial trials, and to confirm such laws made under the present usurpation as should be tendered to him by parliament. "The king," he says himself, "was sensible he should be blamed by several of his friends for submitting to such hard terms; nor was it to be wondered at, if those who knew not the true condition of his affairs were scandalised at it; but after all he had nothing else to do."—P. 505. He was so little satisfied with the articles in this declaration respecting the church of England, that he consulted several French and English divines, all of whom, including Bossuet, after some difference, came to an opinion that he could not in conscience undertake to protect and defend an erroneous church. Their objection, however, seems to have been rather to the expression than the plain sense; for they agreed that he might promise to leave the protestant church in possession of its endowments and privileges. Many too of the English Jacobites, especially the non-juring bishops, were displeased with the declaration, as limiting the prerogative; though it contained nothing which they were not clamorous to obtain from William. P. 514. A decisive proof how little that party cared for civil liberty, and how little would have satisfied them at the revolution, if James had put the church out of danger! The next paragraph is remarkable enough to be extracted for the better confirmation of what I have just said. "By this the king saw he had out-shot himself more ways than one in this declaration; and therefore what expedient he would have found in case he had been restored, not to put a force either upon his conscience or honour, does not appear, because it never came to a trial; but this is certain, his church of England friends absolved him beforehand, and sent him word, that if he considered the preamble, and the very terms of the declaration, he was not bound to stand by it, or to put it out verbatim as it was worded; that the changing some expressions and ambiguous terms, so long as what was principally aimed at had been kept to, could not be called a receding from his declaration, no more than a new edition of a book can be counted a different work, though corrected and amended. And indeed the preamble showed his promise was conditional, which they not performing, the king could not be tied; for my Lord Middleton had writ, that, if the king signed the declaration, those who took it engaged to restore him in three or four months after; the king did his part, but their failure must needs take off the king's future obligation."

In a Latin letter, the original of which is written in James's own hand, to Innocent XII., dated from Dublin, Nov. 26, 1689, he declares himself "Catholicam fidem reducere in tria regna statuisse." Somers Tracts, x. 552. Though this may have been drawn up by a priest, I suppose the king understood what he said. It appears also by Lord Balcarras's Memoir, that Lord Melfort had drawn up the declaration as to indemnity and indulgence in such a manner, that the king might break it whenever he pleased. Somers Tracts, xi. 517.