Note 705 — Chapter VII

The earliest allusion I have seen to the injury the clergy were inflicting on the church, by their conduct after the arrival of William, is in Evelyn's Diary, vol. iii. p. 273,—a curious passage, gently hinting at the ‘wonder of many,’ at the behaviour of ‘the Archbishop of Canterbury, and some of the rest.’ With Evelyn, who loved the church, this was an unpleasant subject; but others were less scrupulous; and in parliament, in particular, men did not refrain from expressing what must have been the sentiments of every impartial observer. In the celebrated debate, in January 1688–9, when the throne was declared vacant, Pollexfen said: ‘Some of the clergy are for one thing, some for another; I think they scarce know what they would have.’ Parl. Hist. vol. v. p. 55. In February, Maynard, one of the most influential members, indignantly said: ‘I think the clergy are out of their wits; and I believe, if the clergy should have their wills, few or none of us should be here again.’ Ibid. vol. v. p. 129. The clergy were themselves bitterly sensible of the general hostility; and one of them writes, in 1694: ‘The people of England, who were so excessively enamoured of us when the bishops were in the tower, that they hardly forbore to worship us, are now, I wish I could say but cool and very indifferent towards us.’ Somers Tracts, vol. ix. p. 525. The growing indignation against the clergy, caused by their obvious desire to sacrifice the country to the interests of the church, is strikingly displayed in a letter from Sir Roland Gwyne, written in 1710, and printed in Macpherson's Orig. Papers, vol. ii. p. 207.