they held no opinions inconsistent with the duties of good citizens; they referred to their irreproachable conduct for many years; to their unalterable attachment to their country; to their detestation of the designs of any foreign power against the Crown, or the safety and tranquillity of the subject.

On May 14 Sir George Saville moved for leave to bring in a Bill for the repeal of certain penalties and disabilities provided in the Act of 10 and 11 William III., entitled "An Act to prevent the further growth of Popery." The motion was seconded by Mr. Dunning, who stated the great and grievous penalties under which Roman Catholics suffered; the perpetual imprisonment as felons and traitors of Popish Priests and Jesuits for celebrating Mass; the forfeiture of the estates of Roman Catholics, who had been educated in foreign countries, in favour of the next Protestant heir, so that a son, if a Protestant, could deprive a Roman Catholic father of his estate; and the deprivation of Roman Catholics of the power of acquiring estates by purchase.

The Bill passed the House of Commons without a dissentient voice, and with but slight opposition the House of Lords also, Dr. Hinchcliffe of Peterborough being the only Bishop who opposed it. Thenceforward all that was required of a Roman Catholic was to subscribe an oath of allegiance to the King, and to disclaim the Pope's authority over this kingdom, or his power to absolve the people in England from obedience to the government as by law established.

1

Some of the laws against the Roman Catholics had, as stated in the House of Commons, ceased to be necessary, others were at all times a disgrace to humanity. The Bill extended only to England, but when the Lord Advocate proposed to introduce a similar Bill for Scotland, a country which had nothing to fear from Roman Catholics, a storm of fanatical fury broke forth in that country. In Edinburgh and Glasgow the chapels of Roman Catholics were destroyed, their property demolished, and their lives threatened. From Scotland this miserable bigotry passed into England, where the "No Popery" cry was raised; the people formed themselves into "Protestant Associations," and broke out into open. rebellion under the presidency of the half-witted Lord George Gordon; London was pillaged for three days; the houses of Roman Catholics were destroyed, the prisons were broken into and set on fire, and the prisoners released, many of them to perish in the flames c. The Protestant feeling was particularly excited against Sir George Saville and Lord Mansfield, the latter of whom had lately screened a Roman Catholic Priest from persecution in a Court of Justice. His house was set on fire; not only his books

The King himself was accused of Popery, and placards with the inscription, "A great man at his devotions," were posted about, exhibiting him in the dress of a monk kneeling at a Roman Catholic Altar on which stood a Crucifix.

The plaintiff had accused the defendant of being a Roman Catholic Priest. “And what reason have you, Mr. Payne,” said

but his valuable manuscripts, which were beyond price, were burnt; he himself was seized by the mob, and his life was endangered, when he was with difficulty rescued by Archbishop Markham of York, who ran from the House of Lords to his assistance, and whose lawn sleeves were torn off and thrown in his face. Dr. Thurlow, Bishop of Lincoln, and brother of the Lord Chancellor, was obliged to seek refuge from the mob in a house from which he escaped along the tiles dressed in a woman's garment. The tumult was at last put down by the military, after many lives were lost and money to the value of £180,000 expended; twenty-one of the rioters were executed; the wretched fanatic who had caused all the misery escaped: instead of being thrown into a common gaol, he was treated as a state prisoner, and dignified by imprisonment in the Tower, and acquitted on the charge of High Treason. A strong Protestant feeling pervaded the nation; advertisements appeared in the newspapers stating that his

the Judge, "to believe that? Were you ever in Rome? or did you see him ordained?" "No," replied Payne, "but I heard him say Dominus Vobiscum, and preach in a Popish Conventicle." "And pray, Mr. Payne, may not you and I say Dominus Vobiscum, or pray in Latin, or pretend to preach? Yet I am of opinion there is not one in this court who takes us for Roman Catholic Priests."-Adolphus's Hist. of England, ii. 557.

He afterwards renounced Christianity and embraced Judaism, and in 1793 died in Newgate of the gaol fever.

Majesty's hosier was one of the staunchest Protestants in the kingdom, and that his Majesty's winemerchants were also Protestants.

After the riots were quelled, the Protestant Associations continued to press their bigotry on the Legislature, and a Bill was passed in the House of Commons depriving Roman Catholics of the right of keeping schools where Protestants were taught; the Lords, however, rejected it as passed under fear of popular outrage, and therefore derogatory to the dignity and independence of Parliament. The miserable riots, however, had the effect of postponing for years any further attempt to obtain relief for Roman Catholics.

f Lord Mahon's Hist., vii. 36.

CHAPTER VI.

LEADING CHURCHMEN OF THE PERIOD.

T no period of its history have more conspicuous

AT

names at one and the same time adorned the English Church than during that part of the eighteenth century with which we are now concerned. When we mention such names-amongst the Archbishops and Bishops, as those of Wake, Potter, Secker, Atterbury, Gibson, Berkeley, Sherlock, Butler, Wilson, Conybeare, Warburton, Louth, and Horne; amongst Priests, those of Bentley, Bingham, Prideaux, Waterland, and Wall—it will be readily imagined that the difficulty of enumerating the leading divines of the day proceeds rather from the abundance than the dearth of material. We shall endeavour in this chapter to give a short account of some of the leading Anglican Archbishops, Bishops, and Priests, as are not mentioned in other parts of this work.

And first as to the Archbishops. Archbishop Wake died in January, 1737. Towards the close of his life he had become so weighed down with infirmities both of mind and body that the principal care of the Church had devolved upon Dr. Gibson, Bishop of