338 The Coronation Oath, and the Cabinet. [Aprrin, 
To this formal demand the king’s answer was an equally formal pro- 
mise of protection, expressed as closely as possible in the words of the 
demand. To all this the king swore. 
This oath James violated: and for the violation was expressly declared 
to have forfeited the throne—in the words of the Act, “ King James 
having broken the solemn compact with his people.” The accession of 
William and Mary, the Protestant sovereigns, saw the oath moulded 
into a new shape, and that shape expressly formed with a respect to the 
perpetual security of the established religion. After two clauses, 
declaring, with scarcely an alteration from the original oath, the Sove- 
reign’s promise to govern according to the laws, statutes, and customs 
of the land, and the execution of the laws in justice and mercy, comes a 
third, béing the first part totally new modelled. The archbishop demands 
of the king,—* Will you, to the utmost of your power, maintain the laws 
of God, the érue profession of the gospel, and the ProrEsTANT REFORMED 
ReviGion as EstaBLisHED By Law? And will you preserve unto the 
bishops and clergy of this realm, and to the churches committed to their 
charge, all such rights and privileges as by law do and shall appertain 
to them or any of them?” This is the first of William and Mary Ce. 6.) 
But, as if to make assurance doubly sure in the Act of Union with 
Scotland (the 5th of Anne), it is enacted, that “every King or Queen 
of England for ever hereafter, coming to the throne of Great Britain, 
shall, at his or her Coronation, take and subscribe an oath to maintain 
and preserve inviolably the said settlement of the Church of England in 
the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, within the 
kingdoms of England and Ireland, the Dominion of Wales, and Town 
of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and the territories thereto belonging.” This 
oath was evidently framed with a peculiar view to the security of Pro- 
testantism. It added nothing to the old promise of security to the civil 
rights, but it added, in the most emphatic degree, to the security of the 
Protestant Church. 
The necessity of this change was pressed on the mind of the legisla- 
ture by the necessities of the time. They had seen the former oath 
evaded by the sovereign, and they were determined to construct an 
oath which no evasion could nullify. And so important did they con- 
sider this bond, that to form it was among the very earliest efforts of 
their newly created freedom. On the very day after the declaration that 
the throne was vacant, Sir Richard Temple, on the 29th of January, 
stated, as the three essentials of the free constitution,—* ist. The secu- 
rity against encroachments on parliament, by providing for the certainty 
and frequency of holding its assemblies, and allowing no standing armies 
without its consent.—2d. Security for the faithful administration of the 
laws, by giving salaries instead of fees to the judges. And, 3d. The 
settlement of the Coronation Oath.” Within a month, on the 28th of 
February, the Coronation Oath was referred to a Committee to -inspect 
it, and consider what alterations ought to be made therein. On the 
25th of March, the House resolved itself it into “a Committee to take 
the matter into their consideration’”—and the oath was modelled as it 
now stands. The purport of the whole change was security against the 
influence of papists in the government, and their returning power of 
perplexing the constitution. The only question which had at all retarded 
the House in settling the oath was, actually, how far it might restrain 
the king from giving the Protestant Dissenters the relief which had 
made a part of his original promises, and in which many members were 
willing to concur. 
; 
: 
