Seven Bishops - Sequence of Events

Sequence of Events

The Declaration of Indulgence had originally been given out on 4 April 1687. The King republished it, with some new prefatory matter, on 25 April 1688. On 4 May the King and his council ordered the bishops that the declaration should be read in all the (Anglican) churches - those of London on 20 May and outside London on 27 May and the two following Sundays. This was the only way, in those days, of making the document swiftly and generally known, which was James's straightforward object; the Anglican clergy, however, felt it a challenge to themselves, for many of them were opposed to the toleration of Roman Catholics and Nonconformists, as were very many of the population of England at that time.

Nine days passed with no objection; then, on 13 May, at Lambeth Palace, Compton (Bishop of London), Sancroft (Archbishop of Canterbury), Turner (Bishop of Ely) and White (Bishop of Peterborough), resolved to defy James's order. They summoned seven others; the four who actually came were Lake (Bishop of Chichester), Lloyd (St Asaph), Trelawny (Bristol) and Turner (Ely). It will be noticed that this (ignoring the three who did not come) makes a total of eight bishops, counting the Archbishop of Canterbury. Compton is not counted in the reckoning of the seven because he was under suspension at the time due to an earlier dispute with the king. The seven bishops (minus Compton) signed a memorial requesting the King that they might be excused; they claimed that the King did not have the legal right to make exemptions from statutes, which was untrue: the King's power to dispense individuals from the provisions of a statute was not seriously in question and had recently been reaffirmed in Godden v Hales.

On the night of Friday, 18 May - not giving James much time - they presented the King with their petition, by way of an ultimatum. James was prepared to negotiate and asked them to come back the next day when he would be able to give a yes or a no answer. Before the hour appointed on that Saturday, the memorial of the bishops had been published in numerous copies and broadcast all over London.

The Council were not sure what to do, but summoned them to appear before them on Friday 8 June. The Bishops could have given their own recognizances for coming up for trial, and thereby avoided being imprisoned before their trial. Sancroft had urged this; even Compton agreed to it; but Sancroft changed his mind. The Bishops seem to have been angling for a delay in the trial proceedings--by refusing to give recognizances, they would have the right to delay the trial until the beginning of Michaelmas term on 23 October. The king, however, wanted a speedy trial, and the only way to get it, apart from convincing the Bishops to give their own recognizances, was to imprison them in the Tower of London before their trial; within the Tower, however, they had complete freedom. Their imprisonment lasted only a week and had the effect, desired by the king, of speeding up the proceedings so that a trial could be held in June. But, in Hilaire Belloc's deliberately ironic words, "Compton had had the satisfaction of seeing a vast popular gathering acclaiming these fathers in God on the way to the horrid dungeon of a Tyrant." George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys, the Lord Chancellor, advised the King to drop the prosecution; on being overruled he asked caustically if the King needed advisers or whether " the Virgin Mary is to do all".