esced in the rule of William as
king _de facto_, and would have transferred their allegiance without a
scruple if there had seemed a strong likelihood that James or the
Pretender would win the crown back again. In this case the Nonjuring
communion, which always proudly insisted that it alone was the true old
Church of England, might have received an immense accession of
adherents. It would not by any means have based its distinctive
character upon mere Jacobite principles. It would have claimed to be
peculiarly representative of the Catholic claims of the English Church,
while Whigs and Low Churchmen would have been more than ever convertible
terms. As it was, High Churchism among country squires took a different
turn. But if the Stuart cause had become once more a promising one, and
had associated itself, in its relations towards the Church, with the
opinions and ritual to which the Nonjurors were no less attached than
Laud and his followers were in Charles I.'s day, it is easy to guess
that such distinctive usages might soon be welcomed with enthusiasm by
Jacobites, if for no other reason, yet as hallowed symbols of a party.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Church parties had been
already strained and most unhappily embittered by political dissensions;
under the circumstances supposed, division might readily have been
aggravated into hopeless schism. But Jacobitism declined; and a less,
but still a serious evil to the Church ensued. Jacobitism and the Papacy
had become in most people's minds closely connected ideas. Hence the
opinions upon Church matters prevalent among Nonjurors and their
ecclesiastical sympathisers in the Established Church became also
unpopular, and tainted with an unmerited suspicion of leaning towards
Rome. This was no gain to the Church of the Georgian era. Quite
independently of any bias which a person may feel towards this or that
shade of opinion upon debated questions, it may be asserted with perfect
confidence that the Church of that period would decidedly have gained by
an increase of life and earnestness in any one section of its members. A
colourless indifferentism was the pest of the age. Some movement in the
too still waters was sorely needed. A few Ritualists, as they would now
be called, in the metropolitan churches, zealous and active men, would
have stimulated within the Church a certain interest and excitement
which, whether it were friendly or hostile, would have been al