happy also for the prisoner; for, if the judge's opinion must rule, the trial by jury would be useless." After a trial of near eleven hours, succeeded by a consultation of the jury which lasted the whole night, the bishops were pronounced "Not guilty," to the infinite joy and satisfaction of the surrounding multitudes, who filled the air with shouts and acclamations; and this victory over a monarch, who had now incurred the general detestation of his subjects, was celebrated by illuminations and public rejoicings throughout every part of the kingdom. The king, who was at this period with the army, encamped, as usual for several summers past, on Hounslow Heath, was suddenly alarmed with the appearance of a general tumult amongst the soldiers, accompanied with wild and extravagant demonstrations of joy. Upon inquiring the cause of the earl of Feversham, he was told "that it was nothing but the rejoicings of the soldiers for the acquittal of the bishops." "Do you call that nothing?" said the king. "But so much the worse for them." Subsequent circumstances, however, happily did not allow him to execute the designs, whatever they might be, which his malignant revenge at the moment suggested. and Infatu The policy of James in thus collecting his Obstinacy forces together in one body was much questioned ation of the King. by the most sagacious of his own adherents. By enjoying the perpetual means of social intercourse, they encouraged and animated each other to resist the farther progress of despotism, and not to suffer themselves to be made the vile and passive instruments of enslaving their fellow subjects and of extirpating the protestant religion. The spirit by which the army was actuated appeared on a variety of occasions; but the king was as a man walking on the edge of a precipice, obstinately and wilfully averting his eyes from the view of the danger. Having determined to recruit and augment his army from Ireland, the attempt was first made on the duke of Berwick's regiment. The lieutenant-colonel and five of the captains strongly remonstrating against the admission of Irish papists into the army, the order was renewed in terms the most peremptory, and the duke of Berwick sent in person to see it enforced; upon which the officers desired leave to lay down their commisions. The king, transported with passion, commanded them to be tried by a court-martial for mutiny; and they were broken with disgrace, and declared incapable of future service. With the evident design of procuring a parliamentary repeal of the penal statutes by intimidation, if not by open force, the king condescended to communicate to the army his sentiments respecting this important object, and required them to satisfy him as to their willingness to concur with him in the measures which he should adopt for that purpose. The first battalion upon whom this singular experiment was made, on being commanded to lay down their arms provided they did not think proper to enter into his majesty's views on this point, without hesitation grounded their arms accordingly. The king declined any farther trial, and sullenly told them, that for the future he would not do them the honor to apply for their approbation. 1 tlemaine's Rome. Undismayed, however, by all the indications Earl of Casof the public odium and indignation, which be- Embassy to came every day more and more apparent, he resolved to send the earl of Castlemaine to Rome, in the character of ambassador extraordinary, for the express purpose of declaring in the most public and solemn manner the obedience and submission of the crown of England to the pope, and of reconciling the British realms to the holy and apostolic see. Instead of meeting with a reception corresponding to the dignity and importance of his embassy, this nobleman was treated with a coldness and indifference approaching to contempt. The court of Rome (which at this period, as well as at most other times, made their religion entirely subservient to their politics), fully apprised of the egregious indiscretion of James, were 1 careful not to give unnecessary umbrage to the English nation, the perpetual rival of France, with whom the papal see was now at open variance, merely to gratify the senseless bigotry of a monarch whose crown seemed already tottering upon his head. The earl had it expressly in charge from the king to solicit a cardinal's hat for Father Petre, a jesuit, who had acquired a wonderful ascendant at the English court, and who was generally considered as the secret but principal adviser of the late desperate measures. But the pope replied, that he had made it a rule never to raise any of that order to the purple. The ambassador also urged the ministers of the pope to make satisfaction to the king of France, with whose conduct his holiness had been so long and so justly offended; and gave intimations of a project secretly entertained by the king of England, in concert with the king of France, for the utter extirpation of heresy. Perceiving his remonstrances neglected, he demanded an audience of his holiness, in which he expressed his grief and astonishment that so little regard was paid to the representations of these two great monarchs. He even presumed to throw out some personal reflections on the holy pontiff himself, as apparently negligent of spiritual concerns, and engrossed wholly in temporal pursuits, which, he said, had given just cause of scandal to all Christendom. And he concluded with a de Conduct of and Prin Orange. The prince and princess of Orange had hitherto Prudent with great prudence abstained from taking any ac- the Prince tive part in the affairs of England, in order to avoid cess of giving any just ground of offence to the king. But they were now constrained by direct and repeated applications of the king himself, who earnestly wished to procure their consent to the parliamentary abolition of the test and penal laws, |