commencement of the present reign should be marked by an Act in favour of the Church.

The Bill passed the Lower House by a considerable majority. The Queen exerted all her influence to get it passed in the House of Lords, and sent her husband down to vote for it, which was certainly rather hard upon him, for he was himself an Occasional Conformist, and although he generally attended his Lutheran Chapel, was obliged, like other Dissenters, to receive the Holy Communion for the civil offices which he held'.

But in the House of Lords, which was to a considerable extent a House of William's creation, and in which his Bishops bore a preponderating influence, the Bill was warmly opposed, and was sent back to the Commons with considerable alterations, which the latter refused to accept. In vain a free conference between the two Houses was held; the Lords persisted in their amendments, the Commons persisted in rejecting them; so the Bill was lost, and both Houses published their proceedings as an appeal to the Nation.

In the same Session another Bill of considerable importance, in favour of the Jacobites, was introduced into the House of Commons, allowing another year's grace to those who had not yet taken the Oath of

On one of the occasions when he was sent down to vote he remarked to Lord Wharton, an opponent of the Bill, "My heart is vid you.”—Tindal, iii. 452.

Abjuration. The House of Lords, which was less favourable than the House of Commons to the Jacobites, added to the Bill three clauses: the first, allowing those persons who should take the oaths within the prescribed period to return to their benefices and employments, unless they were already legally filled up; the second, making it High Treason to attempt to defeat the Protestant succession to the throne; the third, extending the oath of Abjuration to Ireland. The Commons, although at first they made some objections, eventually agreed to the Lords' Amendments, and the Bill, which in its amended form was a severe blow to the Jacobites, passed into law.

But there was evidently a very bitter feeling existing between the two Houses of Parliament, so the Queen at the end of February, 1703, ended the Session with some abruptness. At the closing of the Parliament she took the opportunity of expressing her attachment to the Church, and said that "upon all occasions of promotion to any Ecclesiastical Dignity she would have a just regard for those who were eminent and remarkable for their piety, learning, and constant zeal for the Church."

When Parliament met again in October, the Queen in her speech exhorted the two Houses to avoid all heats and divisions which might give encouragement to the common enemies of the Church and State. The Tories, however, were so intent on passing a Bill to prevent Occasional Conformity, that they deter

mined at once to bring the matter again before Parliament. In the new draft, however, the penalties were lowered and some of the harshest clauses mitigated. The number of persons that constituted a Conventicle was now increased to twelve, instead of five, besides the family, and the fine was lowered from one hundred to fifty pounds. But now a stronger feeling against the Bill than had existed on the previous occasion prevailed amongst the Commons, and the House was pretty equally divided on the subject; the debates for and against it were maintained with equal spirit and ability, the supporters of the Bill declaring that the Church was in danger, and that this Bill was required for its security; eventually it passed and was sent to the House of Lords, to be handled there even more severely than in the Commons. Lord Godolphin and the Duke of Marlborough thought the Bill unseasonable; the Queen herself was now opposed to it, and did not send down her Nonconformist husband to vote for it; many peers who voted for it on the former occasion now absented themselves; the Bishops were divided, nine voting for and fourteen voting against the Bill. Burnet, who confessed that he had himself been an Occasional Conformist, spoke against it; and although Godolphin and Marlborough reluctantly voted for it, it was thrown out by seventy-one against fifty-nine votes. The Clergy were disgusted, and the Queen herself fell under their displeasure.

At this time, when Lords and Commons, animated by opposite principles, were seizing every opportunity of thwarting each other, the Queen performed a noble act of munificence to the Church, which was agreeable to both parties. The Anniversary of her Birthday falling, in 1704, on a Sunday, on the next day (February 7) Sir Henry Hedges, the Secretary of State, brought a message from the Queen to the House of Commons, that "having taken into her serious consideration the mean and insufficient maintenance belonging to the Clergy in divers parts of the kingdom, to give them some ease, she had been pleased to remit the arrears of the tenths to the poor Clergy, and for the augmentation of their maintenance would make a grant of her whole revenue arising out of the first-fruits and tenths, as far as it should become free from incumbrances, to be applied to this purpose," and she desired that an Act of Parliament might be passed to sanction the transfer 1. Bishop Burnet claims for himself (and perhaps he had a voice in the matter) the merit of procuring this grant, and says that in the previous reign he had so frequently advocated the cause,

The tenths amounted to nearly £11,000 annually, and the first-fruits to about £5,000.

The revenues arising from the first-fruits and tenths having been anticipated by various grants for many years, were not available until long afterwards. Only 300 Livings had been benefitted by the bounty in 1720.-Chamberlayne's Past State of Great Britain, p. 202.

that Queen Mary determined, had she lived, to apply the revenue arising from those sources to the augmentation of small Livings. The tax had been originally imposed upon the Clergy by the Pope for the support of the Crusades, but, although frequently objected to by Parliament, and termed in one Acti a "horrible mischief and a damnable custom," continued long after the Crusades ended, to the time of the Reformation. Under Henry VIII. the Annates Act was, at the request of Convocation, passed, and payments to the Pope abolished, but no relief to the Clergy was effected, for the money only went from the Pope into the pockets of the plunderers of the Church. Queen Mary remitted, but Elizabeth again imposed, and even tried to increase, the tax, and by Charles II. it was devoted to his female favourites and their natural children. This act of the Queen was, therefore, a restoration to the Church of what it had been sacrilegiously plundered, but it stands out notwithstanding an honourable memorial to her who was styled the good Queen Anne.

On receiving the Queen's Message, a Bill was passed enabling her to alienate from the Crown this branch of the revenue, and to create by charter a Corporation, which has ever since been known by the title of "the governours of the Bounty of Queen

1 6 Henry IV.