LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP SANCROFT. 83 



beyond this design, of constraining James to 

 alter his course of government, he was never 

 prepared to advance. Here, then, was the 

 point at which he made his firm and immovable 

 stand. In moving up to this point, he actively 

 concurred with others ; but nothing could in- 

 duce him to advance a single step beyond it.^ 

 Thus, as the end which he designed to attain 

 was one throughout, and the means in which he 

 concurred bore uniformly towards that end and 

 no other, he seems clearly not to be liable to 

 the charge of inconsistency, whether that charge 

 be applied to the end pursued or to the means 

 employed. 



But it is by no means equally easy to justify 

 his discernment, when he so mistook the signs 

 of the times as to expect that matters could 

 stop short according to his views, and that the 

 nation could be satisfied, after the struggle they 



* 111 the " Vindication of Archbishop Bancroft and his 

 brethren," published in 1718, it is remarked, probably with 

 justice as far as the Archbishop is concerned, that, while in the 

 Guildhall Declaration, the last public act in which he joined, 

 there is no ojQfer whatever of the supreme power to the Prince of 

 Orange ; the declaration of their readiness to assist him in calling 

 a free parliament, was made with a due reserve of their alle- 

 giance to King James, and on the faith of his assurances that he 

 had no design to remove the king, or get possession of the go- 

 vernment. 



G 2 



