olved to
elevate Catholics to the highest offices of both the state and the
church, and this in defiance of the laws and of the wishes of a great
majority of the nation. He accordingly gave commissions to Catholics
to serve as officers in the army; he made Catholics his confidential
advisers; he introduced Jesuits into London; he received a Papal
nuncio, and he offered the livings of the Church of England to needy
Catholic adventurers. He sought, by threats and artifices, to secure
the repeal of the Test Act, by which Catholics were excluded from
office. Halifax, the ablest of his ministers, remonstrated, and he was
turned out of his employments. But he formed the soul and the centre
of an opposition, which finally drove the king from his throne. He
united with Devonshire and other Whig nobles, and their influence was
sufficient to defeat many cherished objects of the king. When
opposition appeared, however, in parliament, it was prorogued or
dissolved, and the old courses of the Stuart kings were resorted to.

[Sidenote: High Commission Court.]

Among his various acts of infringement, which gave great scandal, even
in those degenerate times, was the abuse of the dispensing power--a
prerogative he had inherited, but which had never been strictly
defined. By means of this, he intended to admit Catholics to all
offices in the realm. He began by granting to the whole Roman Catholic
body a dispensation from all the statutes which imposed penalties and
tests. A general indulgence was proclaimed, and the courts of law were
compelled to acknowledge that the right of dispensing had not been
infringed. Four of the judges refused to accede to what was plainly
illegal. They were dismissed; for, at that time, even judges held
office during the pleasure of the king, and not, as in these times,
for life. They had not the independence which has ever been so
requisite for the bench. Nor would all his counsellors and ministers
accede to his design, and those who were refractory were turned out.
As soon as a servile bench of judges recognized this outrage on the
constitution, four Catholic noblemen were admitted as privy
counsellors, and some clergymen, converted to Romanism, were permitted
to hold their livings. James even bestowed the deanery of Christ
Church, one of the highest dignities in the University of Oxford, on a
notorious Catholic, and threatened to do at Cambridge what had been
done at Oxford. The bishopric of Oxford was b