f the Anglican Church?

Nothing could be more evident than that the plan of Regency could be
defended only on Whig principles. Between the rational supporters of
that plan and the majority of the House of Commons there could be no
dispute as to the question of right. All that remained was a question
of expediency. And would any statesman seriously contend that it was
expedient to constitute a government with two heads, and to give to one
of those heads regal power without regal dignity, and to the other regal
dignity without regal power? It was notorious that such an arrangement,
even when made necessary by the infancy or insanity of a prince, had
serious disadvantages. That times of Regency were times of weakness,
of trouble and of disaster, was a truth proved by the whole history of
England, of France, and of Scotland, and had almost become a proverb.
Yet, in a case of infancy or of insanity, the King was at least passive.
He could not actively counterwork the Regent. What was now proposed was
that England should have two first magistrate, of ripe age and sound
mind, waging with each other an irreconcilable war. It was absurd to
talk of leaving James merely the kingly name, and depriving him of all
the kingly power. For the name was a part of the power. The word King
was a word of conjuration. It was associated in the minds of many
Englishmen with the idea of a mysterious character derived from above,
and in the minds of almost all Englishmen with the idea of legitimate
and venerable authority. Surely, if the title carried with it such
power, those who maintained that James ought to be deprived of all power
could not deny that he ought to be deprived of the title.

And how long was the anomalous government planned by the genius of
Sancroft to last? Every argument which could be urged for setting it up
at all might be urged with equal force for retaining it to the end of
time. If the boy who had been carried into France was really born of the
Queen, he would hereafter inherit the divine and indefeasible right to
be called King. The same right would very probably be transmitted from
Papist to Papist through the whole of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. Both the Houses had unanimously resolved that England should
not be governed by a Papist. It might well be, therefore, that, from
generation to generation, Regents would continue to administer the
government in the name of vagrant and mendicant Kings. There was no