religious measures of his first parliament,
but he recognized that a fresh election might be expected to result in
the choice of a House of Commons still less to his taste, and,
accordingly, the Cavalier Parliament was kept in existence throughout
the entire period 1661-1679. The parliamentary history of the closing
years of the reign centered about the question of the exclusion of the
king's Catholic brother, James, from the throne, and was given special
interest by the conflict of groups foreshadowing political parties;
but Charles maintained unfailingly an attitude which, at the least,
did not endanger his own tenure of the throne.

James II. (1685-1688) was a man of essentially different temper. He
was a Stuart of the Stuarts, irrevocably attached to the doctrine of
divine right and sufficiently tactless to take no pains to disguise
the fact. He was able, industrious, and honest, but obstinate and
intolerant. He began by promising to preserve "the government as by
law established." But the ease with which the Monmouth uprising of
1685 was suppressed deluded him into thinking that through the
exemption of the Catholics from the operation of existing laws he
might in time realize his ambition to re-establish Roman Catholicism
in England. He proceeded, therefore, to issue decrees dispensing (p. 032)
with statutes which Parliament had enacted, to establish an
ecclesiastical commission in violation of parliamentary law of 1641,
and, in 1687, to promulgate a declaration of indulgence extending to
all Catholics and Non-Conformists a freedom in religious matters which
was clearly denied by the laws of the country.[33] By this arbitrary
resumption of ancient prerogative the theory underlying the
Restoration was subverted utterly.

[Footnote 33: Gee and Hardy, Documents Illustrative
of English Church History, 641-644; Adams and
Stephens, Select Documents, 451-454.]

*32. The Revolution: the Bill of Rights.*--Foreseeing no relief from
absolutist practices, and impelled especially by the birth, in 1688,
of a male heir to the king, a group of leading men representing the
various political groups extended to the stadtholder of Holland,
William, Prince of Orange, an invitation to repair to England to
uphold and protect the constitutional liberties of the realm. The
result was the bloodless revolution of 1688. November 5, William
landed at Torquay and advanced toward Lon