f the universities,
as having a legal right to do so. He suspended the penal laws, and
punished those who disobeyed his liberal but unpopular proclamations.
Some noble zealots, the Russells and Sidneys, crossed his path in vain;
but a few bold caballers, the Danbys, the Shaftesburys, and Churchills,
by urging him to despotic acts, and the people to resistance, brought
on a crisis; when, availing themselves of it, they called in a foreign
army and drove out James, and swore he had abdicated; expelled the
Prince of Wales, and falsely called him bastard; made terms with
William, that he should have the crown and privy purse, and they the
actual government; and ended by calling their selfish and hypocritical
work, "a popular and glorious revolution."

It is needless to follow up James's quarrel with the university of
Oxford, and his unsuccessful prosecution of the seven Bishops on the
29th of June, 1688, who, emboldened by the prospect of a revolution,
refused to read his proclamation of indulgence. From the day of their
acquittal, James was lost. Letters were circulated throughout
England[14] and Ireland, declaring the young Prince of Wales (who was
born 10th June) spurious, and containing many other falsehoods, so as
to shake men's souls with rumours, and arouse popular prejudices. The
army was tampered with; the nobles and clergy were in treaty with
Holland. James not only refused to retract his policy till it was too
late; but refused, too, the offer of Louis to send him French troops.

Similar means had been used by and against him in Ireland. Tyrconnell,
who had replaced Clarendon as Lord Lieutenant in 1686, got in the
charters of the corporations, reconstructed the army, and used every
means of giving the Roman Catholics that share in the government of
this country to which their numbers entitled them. And, on the other
hand, the Protestant nobles joined the English conspiracy, and adopted
the English plan of false plots and forged letters.

At length, on 4th November, 1688, Prince William landed at Torbay with
15,000 veterans. James attempted to bear up, but his nearest and
dearest, his relatives and his favourites, deserted him in the hour of
his need. It seems not excessive to say that there never was a
revolution in which so much ingratitude, selfishness, and meanness were
displayed. There is not one great genius or untainted character eminent
in it. Yet it succeeded. On the 18th of December, William entered
L