l understood that he was willing, if the
legislature would comply with his request, to let clergymen who were
already beneficed continue to hold their benefices without swearing
allegiance to him. His conduct on this occasion deserves undoubtedly the
praise of disinterestedness. It is honourable to him that he attempted
to purchase liberty of conscience for his subjects by giving up a
safeguard of his own crown. But it must be acknowledged that he showed
less wisdom than virtue. The only Englishman in his Privy Council
whom he had consulted, if Burnet was correctly informed, was Richard
Hampden; [94] and Richard Hampden, though a highly respectable man, was
so far from being able to answer for the Whig party that he could not
answer even for his own son John, whose temper, naturally vindictive,
had been exasperated into ferocity by the stings of remorse and shame.
The King soon found that there was in the hatred of the two great
factions an energy which was wanting to their love. The Whigs, though
they were almost unanimous in thinking that the Sacramental Test ought
to be abolished, were by no means unanimous in thinking that moment well
chosen for the abolition; and even those Whigs who were most desirous
to see the nonconformists relieved without delay from civil disabilities
were fully determined not to forego the opportunity of humbling and
punishing the class to whose instrumentality chiefly was to be ascribed
that tremendous reflux of public feeling which had followed the
dissolution of the Oxford Parliament. To put the Janes, the Souths, the
Sherlocks into such a situation that they must either starve, or recant,
publicly, and with the Gospel at their lips, all the ostentatious
professions of many years, was a revenge too delicious to be
relinquished. The Tory, on the other hand, sincerely respected and
pitied those clergymen who felt scruples about the oaths. But the Test
was, in his view, essential to the safety of the established religion,
and must not be surrendered for the purpose of saving any man however
eminent from any hardship however serious. It would be a sad day
doubtless for the Church when the episcopal bench, the chapter houses
of cathedrals, the halls of colleges, would miss some men renowned for
piety and learning. But it would be a still sadder day for the Church
when an Independent should bear the white staff or a Baptist sit on the
woolsack. Each party tried to serve those for whom it was inte