e political world into confusion,
received a pardon, and was set at liberty. His friends in the Lower
House moved an address to the Throne, requesting that a pension
sufficient for his support might be granted to him, [404] He was
consequently allowed about three hundred a year, a sum which he thought
unworthy of his acceptance, and which he took with the savage snarl of
disappointed greediness.

From the dispute about Oates sprang another dispute, which might have
produced very serious consequences. The instrument which had declared
William and Mary King and Queen was a revolutionary instrument. It had
been drawn up by an assembly unknown to the ordinary law, and had never
received the royal sanction. It was evidently desirable that this great
contract between the governors and the governed, this titledeed by which
the King held his throne and the people their liberties, should be put
into a strictly regular form. The Declaration of Rights was therefore
turned into a Bill of Rights; and the Bill of Rights speedily passed the
Commons; but in the Lords difficulties arose.

The Declaration had settled the crown, first on William and Mary
jointly, then on the survivor of the two, then on Mary's posterity, then
on Anne and her posterity, and, lastly, on the posterity of William by
any other wife than Mary. The Bill had been drawn in exact conformity
with the Declaration. Who was to succeed if Mary, Anne, and William
should all die without posterity, was left in uncertainty. Yet the
event for which no provision was made was far from improbable. Indeed it
really came to pass. William had never had a child. Anne had repeatedly
been a mother, but had no child living. It would not be very strange if,
in a few months, disease, war, or treason should remove all those who
stood in the entail. In what state would the country then be left? To
whom would allegiance be due? The bill indeed contained a clause which
excluded Papists from the throne. But would such a clause supply the
place of a clause designating the successor by name? What if the next
heir should be a prince of the House of Savoy not three months old?
It would be absurd to call such an infant a Papist. Was he then to be
proclaimed King? Or was the crown to be in abeyance till he came to an
age at which he might be capable of choosing a religion? Might not the
most honest and the most intelligent men be in doubt whether they ought
to regard him as their Sovereign? And t