Note 182 — Chapter VIII

London Gazette, June 11.

Lord Macaulay is very severe upon Lobb. He certainly disgraced himself; but Wilson, in his Dissenting Churches (iii. 436), puts the whole case so as to modify the reader’s judgment. What may be said in palliation of Alsop’s conduct may be seen in Calamy (Account, ii. 488); but really Alsop’s address to James (see Somers’ Tracts, i. 236) is inexcusable. Alsop accepted an Alderman’s gown, and was called Alderman Alsop. His Lordship mentions also Henry Care and Thomas Rosewell amongst the tools of the Court. As to Henry Care, I cannot find that he was a Nonconformist minister; and as to Thomas Rosewell, there is not one word in the State Trials, or in his Life by his son, or in Calamy’s Account (the references made in his Lordship’s notes), to justify his statement in the text about Rosewell’s services being “secured.” No doubt much was done to court the Dissenters at this time, but the picture in Macaulay’s Hist. (ii. 474), is too highly coloured.