Members of the Church of England and Dissenters joined to resist the king. They distrusted and disliked the Catholics, and they were reasonably afraid lest the king should make a bad use of the power which he was trying to gain.

6. The Expulsion of the Fellows of Magdalen.—It was not long before James offended the greater part of his subjects even more than he had already done. The two Universities of Oxford and Cambridge were, at that time, the only places where young men could receive a good education after they had become too old to remain any longer at school. At these Universities no one could teach who was not a member of the Church of England. The consequence was that no man who was not a member of that Church could have his son well educated, unless he were rich enough to pay a private tutor. James wished that there should be a way in which Catholics at least should be educated in their own religion. In order that this might be done, he contrived that two of the colleges at Oxford should be governed by Catholics. He was not satisfied with this, and when the President of Magdalen College died James sent orders to the Fellows, who had the right of choosing a new President, to choose a Catholic. The Fellows met and chose a Protestant. They told James that they had acted according to law, and that they would not obey any one but the man whom they had lawfully chosen. James turned them out of the College, and left them to beg their bread. They were not allowed to starve. They were invited to live in the houses of country gentlemen, who were glad to have this

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opportunity of showing how much they respected them for resisting the king. There can be no doubt that they were right in resisting him. It would have been a good thing if everybody could have been educated in his own religion; but it would have been a very bad thing if the king could have done as he pleased, whatever the law might say. If the king could give up three colleges at Oxford to the Catholics, he might have given up all the colleges at both Universities, and have left the Protestants without education. It was now certain that the Protestants would do all they could to prevent this.

7. The Trial of the Seven Bishops.-After this James gave orders that his Declaration of Indulgence should be read to the people by the clergymen in all the churches. Most clergymen thought that the declaration was against the law, and even wrong in itself. Seven of the bishops signed a petition to the king asking him not to force the clergymen to act against their consciences. The king was very angry, and he was more angry when the day came on which he had ordered that the declaration should be read. Scarcely a clergyman in the whole of England obeyed the king's orders, and in some places where a clergyman was found to read the declaration the congregation walked out of the church rather than listen to it. The king ordered that the seven bishops should be tried for having published a seditious libel, that is to say, a paper in which falsehood is told with the object of bringing about resistance to the Government. The trial lasted during a whole

day. The lawyers who were engaged for the bishops showed that their petition was not a libel at all. The jury left the Court to determine upon the verdict. At first nine of them were for the bishops and three were for the king. Two of these latter gave way, and only one was left who was against the

bishops. This was Arnold, who was the king's brewer. Whatever I do,' he had said, before the trial began, I am sure to be half-ruined. If I say "Not Guilty," I shall brew no more for the king; and if I say "Guilty," I shall brew no more for anybody else.' He seems to have made up his mind that the king's custom was worth more than that of the rest

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of the world. Another gentleman named Austin proposed to argue with him. Arnold said that he did not want to hear arguments. If you come to that,' answered Austin, 'look at me. I am the largest and strongest of this twelve, and before I find such a petition as this a libel, here I will stay till I am no bigger than a tobacco pipe.' Before this threat Arnold gave way after a struggle lasting all through the night, and when the Court assembled in the morning the verdict of Not Guilty' was given in. Crowds in Westminster Hall and in the streets around shouted for joy. At Hounslow, where James had formed a camp, the very soldiers, with whose help James hoped to put down all resistance, shouted like the rest. James, who was there, asked what it all meant. Nothing,' he was told, the soldiers are glad that the bishops are acquitted.' 'Do you call that nothing?' he answered. So much the worse for them.'

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8. The Invitation to the Prince of Orange.-The acquittal of the bishops took place on June 30, 1688. On the same day a message was sent to William of Orange by seven noblemen and gentlemen, some of them Whigs and some of them Tories, to request him to come to England to save the laws and liberties of the nation. There was a reason why this had not been done before. It had lately been announced that a son and heir had been born to James. Before that birth every one knew that, whenever James died, the Crown would pass to a Protestant successor, the Princess of Orange, and that everything that James had done would speedily be undone. They now knew that

the heir was an infant who would certainly be brought up in his father's belief, and who would, when he became a man, act exactly in the same way that his father had acted. As people are very apt to disbelieve what it is to their interest to disbelieve, most men repeated with firm conviction a story that the infant was not the son of the king and queen, but was some one else's child who had been brought into the palace by stealth. William of Orange, whether he believed this or not, was resolved to accept the invitation. He collected a fleet and a small army, and landed at Torbay. He marched towards London. After a little time, men of rank began to join him. Very soon there were insurrections in the North and centre of England. James's own officers deserted to William, and James soon discovered that scarcely a man in England was likely to draw sword for him. Even then, if he could have given up all his plans, he might have continued to reign. But he could not make up his mind to do this. He attempted to fly to France, but was brought back. William was far too wise to wish to stop him. He did not want to keep him as an interesting prisoner like Mary Queen of Scots, or to cut off his head that people might talk of him s a royal martyr, as they had talked of Charles I. He therefore gave him every opportunity to fly. This time James got safely away. He reached France, where Lewis XIV. received him kindly. He was never again to set foot in England.