ly orders. In accordance
with an agreement between Archbishop Sheldon and Lord Chancellor
Clarendon, the clergy ceased to tax themselves in convocation, and from
1665 have been taxed by parliament. James II., though a Romanist,
promised to protect the church, and the clergy were on his side in the
rebellion of the duke of Monmouth, who was supported by dissenters. The
church and the nation, however, were strongly Protestant and were soon
alarmed by his efforts to Romanize the country. James dispensed with the
law by prerogative and appointed Romanists to offices in defiance of
the Test Act. In 1688 he ordered that his declaration for liberty of
conscience, issued in the interest of Romanism, should be read in all
churches. His order was almost universally disobeyed. Archbishop
Sancroft and six bishops who remonstrated against it were brought to
trial, and were acquitted to the extreme delight of the nation. James's
attack on the church cost him his crown.

Revolution period.

Sancroft and eight bishops would not belie their belief in the doctrines
of divine right and passive obedience by swearing allegiance to William
and Mary, and the archbishop, five bishops and over 400 clergy were
deprived. Certain of these nonjuring bishops consecrated others and a
schism ensued. The loss to the church was heavy; for among the nonjurors
were many men of holy lives and eminent learning, and the fact that some
suffered for conscience' sake seemed a reproach on the rest of the
clergy. After 1715 the secession became unimportant. Protestantism was
secured from further royal attack by the Bill of Rights; and in 1701 the
Act of Succession provided that all future sovereigns should be members
of the Church of England. That the king's title rested on a
parliamentary decision was destructive of the clerical theory of divine
right, and encouraged Erastianism, then specially dangerous to the
church; for William, a Dutch Presbyterian, gave bishoprics to men
personally worthy, but more desirous of union with other Protestant
bodies than jealous for the principles of their own church. A bill for
union was rejected in the Commons, where the church party had a
majority, though one for toleration of Protestant dissenters became law.
William, anxious for concessions to dissenters, appointed a committee of
convocation for altering the liturgy, canons and ecclesiastical courts,
but the Tory party in the lower house of convocation was strong and t