any who had not dared to applaud that
remarkable speech had cordially approved of it, that it was the
universal subject of conversation throughout London, and that the
impression made on the public mind seemed likely to be durable. [310]

The Commons went into committee without delay, and voted to the King,
for life, the whole revenue enjoyed by his brother. [311]

The zealous churchmen who formed the majority of the House seem to have
been of opinion that the promptitude with which they had met the wish of
James, touching the revenue, entitled them to expect some concession
on his part. They said that much had been done to gratify him, and that
they must now do something to gratify the nation. The House, therefore,
resolved itself into a Grand Committee of Religion, in order to consider
the best means of providing for the security of the ecclesiastical
establishment. In that Committee two resolutions were unanimously
adopted. The first expressed fervent attachment to the Church of
England. The second called on the King to put in execution the penal
laws against all persons who were not members of that Church. [312]

The Whigs would doubtless have wished to see the Protestant dissenters
tolerated, and the Roman Catholics alone persecuted. But the Whigs were
a small and a disheartened minority. They therefore kept themselves as
much as possible out of sight, dropped their party name, abstained from
obtruding their peculiar opinions on a hostile audience, and steadily
supported every proposition tending to disturb the harmony which as yet
subsisted between the Parliament and the Court.

When the proceedings of the Committee of Religion were known at
Whitehall, the King's anger was great. Nor can we justly blame him for
resenting the conduct of the Tories If they were disposed to require
the rigorous execution of the penal code, they clearly ought to have
supported the Exclusion Bill. For to place a Papist on the throne, and
then to insist on his persecuting to the death the teachers of that
faith in which alone, on his principles, salvation could be found, was
monstrous. In mitigating by a lenient administration the severity of the
bloody laws of Elizabeth, the King violated no constitutional principle.
He only exerted a power which has always belonged to the crown. Nay, he
only did what was afterwards done by a succession of sovereigns zealous
for Protestantism, by William, by Anne, and by the princes of the House
of