The new convocation was opened on the 31st of December following. The Latin service was read by the Bishop of Oxford, and the sermon preached by the Dean of St Paul's. Dr Woodward was elected prolocutor, and two months were occupied in the same angry discussions, respecting the prerogatives of the two houses, which had disgraced the convocation previous. The simple point contended for was this: the Lower House claimed to be on the same footing as to the Upper House that the Commons in Parliament are in regard to the House of Lords; that is, to adjourn by their own authority, apart from the Upper House, where, and to such time, as they should think proper. This the Upper House resisted, maintaining that the ancient usage was for the archbishop to adjourn both houses together, and to the same time. This was the only matter discussed by the convocation which met on December 31, 1701; and this was not settled, for, in the midst of the discussion, King William died on the 8th of March 1702, and thus those ecclesiastical brawlers were sent home to attend to more sacred work in their respective churches.

These disreputable contentions continued for many years after this. "The governing men in the Lower House," says Burnet, "were headstrong and factious, and designed to force themselves into preferment by the noise they made, and by the ill-humour which they endeavoured to spread among the clergy, who were generally soured by their proceedings."

It is impossible to say what part Samuel Wesley took in these convocation debates; and, in the absence of information, the reader is left to guess.

We conclude the present chapter with a brief review of the state of things during the reign of King William's successor, Queen Anne. This will clear the way for further details respecting Mr Wesley.

Anne was proclaimed Queen of England in March 1702. She was in the thirty-eighth year of her age, but was as much under the tutelage of Lord and Lady Marlborough as if she had been a girl of fifteen, or of still tenderer years. Three days after her accession, Marlborough was decorated with the order of the garter, and very soon obtained the entire command of the English army. His countess was made groom of the stole and mistress of the robes, and was intrusted with the management of the privy

purse. His two daughters were nominated ladies of the bedchamber; and the father-in-law of one of these ladies, the Earl of Sunderland, obtained the renewal of a pension of £2000, which had been granted him by King William. Marlborough's influence, in the court of England was omnipotent.*

The Queen, unlike her predecessor King William, was a most bigoted Tory. From her infancy she had imbibed unconquerable prejudices against the Whigs; and looked upon them all not only as Republicans, who hated the very shadow of regal authority, but as implacable enemies to the Church of England. Hence she lost no opportunity of filling up offices of State with her own partisans and friends, and, in a short time, the Whigs of King William were displaced, and the Tories of Queen Anne took their posts. † All this had an influence on the nation in general. The people began to change their sentiments, and persons of all ranks began to argue in favour of strict hereditary succession, divine right, and nonresistance to the regal power.

"Nature," says Macaulay, "had made Queen Anne a bigot. Such was the constitution of her mind, that, to the religion of her nursery she could not but adhere, without examination and without doubt, till she was laid in her coffin. In the court of her father she had been deaf to all that could be urged in favour of transubstantiation and auricular confession. In the court of her brother she was equally deaf to all that could be urged in favour of a general union among Protestants. This slowness and obstinacy made her important. It was a great thing to be the only member of the Royal family who regarded Papists and Presbyterians with an impartial aversion."

Soon after the Queen's accession there was a parliamentary election, and the choice went generally in favour of those who were

Macaulay writes:-"Queen Anne had no will, no judgment, no conscience, but those of the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough. "To them she had sacrificed affections, prejudices, habits, interests. In obedience to them, she had joined in the conspiracy against her father. She had fled from Whitehall in the depth of winter, through ice and mire, to a hackney coach. She had taken refuge in the rebel camp. She had consented to yield her place in the order of succession to the Prince of Orange. While a large party was disposed to make her an idol, the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough regarded her merely as their puppet, and no person, who had a natural interest in Anne, could observe, without uneasiness, the strange infatuation which made her the slave of an imperious and reckless termagant."

+ Knight's History of England.

friends to the Church and monarchy. The House of Commons was now ready, as well as her Majesty's chief ministers, to concur in her designs for the suppression of Dissenters, and for the aggrandisement of the Established Church. The House of Lords, however, had been so remodelled, in the reign of King William, that there was only a minority of its members in favour of the Queen's principles and projects, and hence ecclesiastical measures, which passed the Lower House with acclamations, met in the Upper House with opposition and defeat.

One of the first measures of the new parliament was the "Occasional Conformity Bill," the real object of which was to render null the Toleration Act, by providing that all who took the sacrament and the test, as qualifications for office, and afterwards went to the meetings of Dissenters, should be disabled for holding public offices, and should be fined £100, and £5 additional for every day that such person or persons continued in public office after being present at such Dissenting meetings. The Queen's Tories in the House of Commons carried the bill with a triumphant majority; but, in the House of Lords, King William's bishops stoutly opposed the measure, and, despite the influence of Marlborough, succeeded in its rejection. When parliament broke up, the Queen told its members that she hoped such of her subjects as had "the misfortune to dissent from the Church of England would rest secure and satisfied in the Act of Toleration, which she was firmly resolved to maintain ;" and that those who had the "happiness and advantage to be of our Church might rest assured that she would make it her particular care to encourage and maintain the Church in all its just rights and privileges, and so transmit it securely settled to posterity."

When parliament re-assembled, in 1703, the rejected "Occasional Conformity Bill" was again brought into the House of Commons, and passed without any considerable opposition, but was again rejected in the House of Lords.

In the same year, the Queen, on her birthday, showed her devoted attachment to the Church of England by making a grant of her whole revenue, arising out of the first-fruits and tenths, for augmenting the livings of the poorer clergy. These first-fruits and tenths amounted to about £16,000 a year, and, in the time of Charles II. had been distributed chiefly among his concubines and

*Life of Queen Anne, London, 1721.

his illegitimate children. There were now hundreds of clergymen whose livings were not worth more than £20 a year, and thousands whose livings did not exceed £50 a year. Of course, the Queen was well nigh overwhelmed with addresses, thanking her for her royal bounty, and it was difficult to tell whether she was prouder of the title "Queen of England," than she was of "Nursing-mother to the Church." This tender care for poor ministers, however, did not extend to other sects of the Protestant communion; for, just at the same time, this royal benefactress allowed the Irish Parliament to stop the paltry grant of £1200 per annum, which had been paid to the poor Presbyterian ministers in Ulster in the reign of her predecessor, King William.

In 1704, the "Occasional Conformity Bill" was a third time introduced into the House of Commons, though there was still not the slightest chance of its passing in the House of Lords.

In the year following, Lord Halifax moved, in the Upper House, that a day might be appointed to inquire into the "Dangers of the Church," it being alleged that the rejection of the "Occasional Conformity Bill" was likely to ruin both Church and State, and especially when this was coupled with the liberty of the press and the licence of the times, wherein no restraint was laid upon those who vilified the established religion. Both Houses of Parliament, however, passed a resolution, to the effect, that the Church of England was in a most safe and flourishing condition, and the Queen ordered a proclamation to be issued accordingly.

All this created great excitement, which will have to be more fully noticed in another chapter. At present, we can only add that, in 1712, an act was passed by parliament, to the effect, that, if any person holding public office should attend a conventicle, at which more than ten persons were assembled, he should be fined £40, and should be adjudged incapable henceforth to hold such office, or any other office or employment whatsoever, unless he conformed to the Church of England for one year without being present at any conventicle, and received, during that year, the holy sacrament at least three times.

This intolerant Act of Parliament was followed by another of a kindred kind, in 1714, the year of Queen Anne's decease-" An Act to prevent the growth of schism, and for the further security of the Churches of England and Ireland, as by law established." By

this statute, it was enacted that, if any person dared to keep any public or private school without subscribing a declaration to the effect that he would conform to the Liturgy of the Church of England, and without obtaining a licence from the ordinary of the place, such person, on conviction, should be committed to the common gaol for three months. The same penalty was to be inflicted upon a person who had duly qualified himself for the office of schoolmaster, and had obtained the necessary licence, if he dared to be present at any conventicle where prayer was not offered for Queen Anne. *

This was a fitting wind up of the reign of an ecclesiastical, though well-intentioned bigot. Anne was seized with apoplexy on the 28th of July 1714, and four days afterwards died, without being able either to receive the sacrament or to sign her will. This princess was remarkable neither for learning nor capacity, and yet she was," says John Wesley, "a good wife, a tender mother, a warm friend, an indulgent mistress, a munificent patron, and a merciful monarch; for, during her whole reign, no subjects' blood was shed for treason. In a word, if she was not the greatest she was certainly one of the best and most unblemished sovereigns that ever sat upon the throne of England; and well deserved the expressive, though simple, epithet of 'The good Queen Anne.'"t

Great efforts were made, during the reign of Anne, to multiply churches, but, at the same time, there was an enormous increase of places of public resort and public discussion. Club-houses, chocolate-houses, and coffee-houses became so numerous that, besides the large ones, there was one or more for almost every parish in the capital, in which citizens regaled themselves to their hearts' content, and found fault with the management of public matters. On entering a coffee-house, the visitor had only to pay a penny at the bar, and for this he was not only served with a cup of coffee, but accommodated with the newspapers of the day, and with the newest pamphlets on morals and on politics. Tradesmen forsook their shops, and merchants their offices, to take care of the affairs of state, and to harangue upon the misconduct of the ministry, until, by neglecting their business, those oratorical financiers and disinterested patriots were, not unfrequently, seized by an ambushment of bumbailiffs, and, after having defrayed the debts of • Life of Queen Anne. + Wesley's History of England.