INTRODUCTORY. 1 9 



Neither the first nor the last had, before he became king, been 

 familiar with episcopacy. Both certainly conformed to the 

 English ritual, but William's bishops and George's bishops 

 had little in them of the policy of Laud or Sheldon. 



As the nation was resolved on affirming this principle, it 

 became necessary that they should cut themselves adrift from 

 another tenet, that of the Divine right of kings. On the 

 principle of hereditary right, some twenty or thirty persons 

 in Kurope were nearer the throne than Sophia of Hanover. 

 There were the descendants of Henrietta of Orleans and the 

 older branches of the Palatine family. But all were banned 

 by their creed. The title of the present royal house is a 

 parliamentary one, one valid only by Act of Parliament, the 

 latest being that enacted after the death of the Duke of 

 Gloucester. But the entirely secular and political character 

 of the title which the House of Hanover enjoys is the 

 greatest source of its strength. A parliamentary title is seen 

 to be far more respectable than the presumption of in- 

 defeasible right. 



As soon as ever the nation had repudiated the doctrine 

 that the sovereign could define the subjects' religion, 

 toleration became inevitable, and religious equality a mere 

 question of time. What happened in Holland after the War 

 of Independence happened in England after the Revolution. 

 The Dutch in all their negotiations with Spain declined to 

 pledge themselves that they would tolerate the creed which 

 they resisted in the person of the Spanish king, but they 



itcd it at once and of their own accord when their 

 independence was assured. One of the first acts of the 



lish Revolution was the Toleration Act. Instead of 

 g the Act of Uniformity as they could have done, 



proposed a Comprehension Act, a most unwise and short- 

 sighted proceeding, which fortunately failed. Unhappily the 

 new settlement was not equally generous to the few remaining 



rents of the old faith, and the disabilities of the Roman 



olics were continued for nearly a century and a-half. 



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