interposed to prevent those evils, which otherwise would have been unavoidable.
The period between the passing of the Act, requiring all Ecclesiastical persons to take the Oath, and the time fixed for the deprivation of those who should not comply, was a very anxious one, not only to those who subsequently refused to submit, but also to many who submitted. Sancroft and the Bishops absented themselves from the House of Lords: and no feeling bordering on compliance appears to have been entertained by them. They conducted themselves quietly, discharging the duties of their station. On the day on which William and Mary were proclaimed, Henry Wharton officiated in the Archbishop's chapel and prayed for the new Sovereigns. The Archbishop was offended, and requested that no change might be made. Wharton states, that Sancroft derived his views from the Bishops of Norwich, Chichester, and Ely. However, he retained his Chaplains at Lambeth, though they gave in their adhesion to the new government.[1]
Lake, Bishop of Chichester, died in the interval, between the passing of the Act and the day fixed for taking the Oath. Soon after his death an account of his last moments was published by Dr. Jenkin. "His Lordship," says the writer, "was one of the seven Bishops, who by their Christian courage and patience disarmed the rage of our Popish adversaries, in the height of their pride and triumph. Nothing greater can be said, than that he was of their number, and that after he had prevented the sending down the declarations into his own diocese, he came in great haste to London, and joined himself to the rest of My Lords the Bishops, and had his share in the whole
- ↑ D'Oyley's Sancroft, i. 436, 437.
