Consecration of the Nuncio at Saint James's Palace; his public Reception--The Duke of Somerset--Dissolution of the Parliament;Military Offences illegally punished--Proceedings of the High Commission; the Universities--Proceedings against the University of Cambridge--The Earl of Mulgrave--State of Oxford--Magdalene College, Oxford--Anthony Farmer recommended by the King for President--Election of the President--The Fellows of Magdalene cited before the High Commission--Parker recommended as President; the Charterhouse--The Royal Progress--The King at Oxford; he reprimands the Fellows of Magdalene--Penn attempts to mediate--Special Ecclesiastical Commissioners sent to Oxford--Protest of Hough--Parker--Ejection of the Fellows--Magdalene College turned into a Popish Seminary--Resentment of the Clergy--Schemes of the Jesuitical Cabal respecting the Succession--Scheme of James and Tyrconnel for preventing the Princess of Orange from succeeding to the Kingdom of Ireland--The Queen pregnant; general Incredulity--Feeling of the Constituent Bodies, and of the Peers--James determines to pack a Parliament--The Board of Regulators--Many Lords Lieutenants dismissed; the Earl of Oxford--The Earl of Shrewsbury--The Earl of Dorset--Questions put to the Magistrates--Their Answers; Failure of the King's Plans--List of Sheriffs--Character of the Roman Catholic Country Gentlemen--Feeling of the Dissenters; Regulation of Corporations--Inquisition in all the Public Departments--Dismission of Sawyer--Williams Solicitor General--Second Declaration of Indulgence; the Clergy ordered to read it--They hesitate; Patriotism of the Protestant Nonconformists of London--Consultation of the London Clergy--Consultation at Lambeth Palace--Petition of the Seven Bishops presented to the King--The London Clergy disobey the Royal Order--Hesitation of the Government--It is determined to prosecute the Bishops for a Libel--They are examined by the Privy Council--They are committed to the Tower--Birth of the Pretender--He is generally believed to be supposititious--The Bishops brought before the King's Bench and bailed--Agitation of the public Mind--Uneasiness of Sunderland--He professes himself a Roman Catholic--Trial of the Bishops--The Verdict; Joy of the People--Peculiar State of Public Feeling at this Time THE marked discourtesy of the Pope might well have irritated the meekest of princes. But the only effect which it produced on James was to make him more lavish of caresses and compliments.
While Castelmaine, his whole soul festered with angry passions, was on his road back to England, the Nuncio was loaded with honours which his own judgment would have led him to reject. He had, by a fiction often used in the Church of Rome, been lately raised to the episcopal dignity without having the charge of any see. He was called Archbishop of Amasia, a city of Pontus, the birthplace of Strabo and Mithridates. James insisted that the ceremony of consecration should be performed in the chapel of Saint James's Palace. The Vicar Apostolic Leyburn and two Irish prelates officiated. The doors were thrown open to the public;and it was remarked that some of those Puritans who had recently turned courtiers were among the spectators. In the evening Adda, wearing the robes of his new office, joined the circle in the Queen's apartments. James fell on his knees in the presence of the whole court and implored a blessing. In spite of the restraint imposed by etiquette, the astonishment and disgust of the bystanders could not be concealed.278 It was long indeed since an English sovereign had knelt to mortal man; and those who saw the strange sight could not but think of that day of shame when John did homage for his crown between the hands of Pandolph.
