n, took off a glass to their
damnation. Another, after performing divine service on a fast day
appointed by their authority, dined on a pigeon pie, and while he cut it
up, uttered a wish that it was the usurper's heart. But such audacious
wickedness was doubtless rare and was rather injurious to the Church
than to the government, [465]

Those clergymen and members of the Universities who incurred the
penalties of the law were about four hundred in number. Foremost in rank
stood the Primate and six of his suffragans, Turner of Ely, Lloyd
of Norwich, Frampton of Gloucester, Lake of Chichester, White of
Peterborough, and Ken of Bath and Wells. Thomas of Worcester would have
made a seventh: but he died three weeks before the day of suspension. On
his deathbed he adjured his clergy to be true to the cause of hereditary
right, and declared that those divines who tried to make out that the
oaths might be taken without any departure from the loyal doctrines of
the Church of England seemed to him to reason more jesuitically than the
Jesuits themselves, [466]

Ken, who, both in intellectual and in moral qualities, ranked highest
among the nonjuring prelates, hesitated long. There were few clergymen
who could have submitted to the new government with a better grace. For,
in the times when nonresistance and passive obedience were the favourite
themes of his brethren, he had scarcely ever alluded to politics in
the pulpit. He owned that the arguments in favour of swearing were
very strong. He went indeed so far as to say that his scruples would be
completely removed if he could be convinced that James had entered
into engagements for ceding Ireland to the French King. It is evident
therefore that the difference between Ken and the Whigs was not a
difference of principle. He thought, with them, that misgovernment,
carried to a certain point, justified a transfer of allegiance, and
doubted only whether the misgovernment of James had been carried quite
to that point. Nay, the good Bishop actually began to prepare a pastoral
letter explaining his reasons for taking the oaths. But, before it was
finished, he received information which convinced him that Ireland had
not been made over to France: doubts came thick upon him: he threw
his unfinished letter into the fire, and implored his less scrupulous
friends not to urge him further. He was sure, he said, that they had
acted uprightly: he was glad that they could do with a clear conscienc