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VII.-THE SEVEN BISHOPS AND SACHEVERELL. THERE are perhaps no hymns better known in the household, the closet, and the church than "Morning, Evening, and Midnight," by Bishop Kenn. "Had he endowed three hospitals, he might have been less a benefactor to posterity." When dwelling in quiet thought upon the sentiment of the hymns, and listening to the plain solemn melodies to which they are sung, few perhaps think of the pious prelate who wrote them, and fewer still, of his connexion with one of the most exciting scenes ever witnessed even in Westminster Hall-that theatre of surpassing excitement for so many centuries. Kenn was one of the seven bishops there tried in 1688, on the eve of the Revolution-that event being in no small degree produced by this proceeding. He was a man of pure devotion and intrepid honesty; and an anecdote is told of his refusing to admit to his lodgings the infamous Nell Gwyn, when she accompanied Charles II. and his court to Winchester. The king, instead of resenting his boldness, bestowed on him a mitre, giving him the see of Bath and Wells.

Lloyd, Bishop of St. Asaph, was another of the seven, " a proficient in philology, history, philosophy, and divinity, as if each of these had been the sole object of his application." He was a distinguished preacher and controversialist, and materially assisted Burnet in his "History of the Reformation."

Turner, Bishop of Ely, was another. He was "an affected writer," and in no way remarkable except as the early and intimate friend of Kenn. Lake, Bishop of Chichester, was another, who, notwithstanding his share in the resistance of James, declared on his death-bed his belief in the doctrine of passive obedience.

Trelawney, Bishop of Bristol, was another—a man of ability, "of polite manners, competent learning, and uncommon knowledge of the world." White, Bishop of Peterborough, was another--a person who seems to have been distinguished only by his connexion with this trial.

The leader of the band was Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, whose usually timid and irresolute disposition was overcome on this occasion. It is curious that, after being placed, as it is said he was, at the head of the church, because he was of a recluse and meditative turn, and not likely to disturb the court in their designs upon the people, he should appear at the head of a proceeding which served so greatly to put an end to the reign of arbitrary power. Refusing to take the oaths at the Revolution, he was deprived of his bishopric and retired into obscurity, which he preferred to the cares and trials of office; and when living in a private house in London, after being accustomed to Lambeth Palace, it is said he was visited by the Earl of Aylesbury, who was affected to tears on seeing him come to open his own door. "Oh! my good lord," observed he, "rather rejoice with me; for now I live again."

Kenn, Lake, White, and Turner, as well as Sancroft, after opposing James, proved nonjurors under William-advocates of an invariable legitimate succession, as well as high churchmen— teachers of the divine right of kings and of passive obedience, though professing themselves friends to toleration. Their conduct as nonjurors was more in harmony with their abstract political principles than the course which they pursued towards king James. That brought them into Westminster Hall as culprits, before the tribunal of a despotic prince, and so made them popular with multitudes of their contemporaries, who, in other respects, would not sympathize with them; at the same time it has rendered their names illustrious in the eyes of posterity, notwithstanding the

repugnance of modern opinion to their conscientiously cherished

maxims.

James issued a declaration of indulgence on his own simple authority; thus, indeed, by relieving from penal statutes against religion, conferring a benefit, but then doing it at the expense of a fundamental principle-that the king has no power to set aside any of the laws of the realm. "The motives of this declaration," observes Mr. Hallam, "was not so much to relieve the Roman Catholics from penal and incapacitating statutes (which were virtually at an end), as by extending to the Protestant Dissenters the same full measure of toleration, to enlist under the standard of arbitrary power those who had been its most intrepid and steadiest adversaries." This declaration James commanded the clergy to read in the churches. This led to the petition of the seven bishops, who prayed for the withdrawment of the order, and that no alteration might be made but by consent of the whole legislature. The objection they felt to reading the declaration rested, they said, not on any want of duty to the king, nor any want of tenderness to the Dissenters, but on the dispensing power which it involved, so often declared to be illegal. The king was angry at this petition, which was soon printed and extensively circulated.

On the day appointed for reading the declaration at church, few complied. One clergyman preached from the text, "Be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image thou hast set up." Another announced, "My brethren, I am obliged to read this declaration, but you are not obliged to listen;" so out the people went, and the minister proceeded to repeat the royal decree to empty benches. James re solved to proceed against the refractory prelates for a seditious libel, into which the crown lawyers were to construe the petition. The seven bishops were committed to the Tower on the 8th of

June. They went there by water; and the people, whose sympathies were with them, lined the banks and cheered them by the way, rendering their imprisonment a perfect ovation. "The concern of the people," says Evelyn, "was wonderful; infinite crowds on their knees begging their blessing, and praying for them as they passed.' The soldiers of the garrison received them most reverently, and went down on their knees to beg an episcopal blessing. The seven went to the Tower Chapel, it being the time of evening prayer, and there the deep excitement of the hour was at once heightened and softened by a passage which occurred in the second lesson, so full of comfort and hope to the prisoners: "I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation I have succoured thee. Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation."

All over London and the country the talk was of the captives. Ten Nonconformists came as a deputation from their brethren, with an address of condolence. Twenty-eight peers offered to bail them. Messages, too, came from Holland, expressing the interest of the Prince and Princess of Orange in their fate.

On the 15th, the bishops were brought to Westminster to the Court of King's Bench. The papal nuncio saw the procession, and informs us :-" Of the immense concourse of people who received them on the bank and followed them to the hall, the greater part fell upon their knees, wishing them happiness and asking their blessing; and the Archbishop of Canterbury laid his hands on those that were nearest, telling them to be firm in their faith; and the people cried out that all should kneel, and tears were seen to flow from the eyes of many."

Westminster Hall has raised its huge form many a time, like an old rock out of the bosom of the sea, as crowds on crowds of excited people have surrounded it. On this occasion the ocean of heads was more immense than ever, while surges of feeling rose and

rolled and broke every moment. All London seemed on the spot, and all the spirit of the nation concentrated there. Within were the lawyers arguing. The Attorney-General required the prisoners to plead forthwith, to which the counsel for the bishops objected. However, the objections were overruled, and the bishops put in the plea of "not guilty," and were then released on bail. This the people took for a triumph, and set no bounds to their joy when "the seven came out. Huzzas rent the air; the abbey bells rung; the streets were thronged all the way the bishops went; bonfires were lighted at night; Roman Catholics were maltreated; and execrations poured on all false bishops.

On the 29th of June, the grand trial took place in Westminster Hall. One of the most worthless men that ever sat on the bench, Lord Chief Justice Wright, the protégé of the infamous Jeffreys, presided on this occasion. Oddly enough, Sawyer and Finch, two lawyers who had been the state prosecutors in the reign of Charles II., and had conducted the proceedings against Lord William Russell, now appeared on the side of the prosecuted; while Williams, the Whig advocate, now Solicitor-General, with Powys, the Attorney-General, and others, acted on the side of the king. This strange confusion of parties led not only to remark and raillery among the bystanders, but to fierce attack and recrimination among themselves; one charging another with gross inconsistency, and each having the best of it in assault and the worst of it in defence. Lords and gentlemen attended the accused into court, and barons in abundance sat ranged in rows beside the judges, severely scrutinizing the acts of their lordships, and keeping Wright in something like order; for he did not know but that they might be his judges before long, so that, it is said, he looked "as if all the peers present had halters in their pockets." Such was the deep feeling produced in the audience, that there was no maintaining the usual order of a court: witnesses and counsel even