Conclusion

Abstract

What light does the trial of the seven bishops cast on the events of 1688–9? It is clear that the bishops were fearful of James’s policies and distrusted his objectives and tactics. They clearly felt that James had broken his coronation oath, that he was threatening the Church, and had arrogated to himself an illegal and general dispensing power to do so. Doubtless they felt grievously disappointed by James, whose succession they had championed. The Magdalen College affair had demonstrated the ineffectiveness of traditional Anglican passive obedience; Hough and the fellows had failed to halt James’s illegal actions. Indeed the fellows were only reinstated after the bishops had challenged James and been acquitted. Lay politicians stood by in equivocation. Allowed to continue, it seemed likely that the King would seriously damage both Church and state. Yet the bishops’ attitude remained essentially conservative and can be seen in the words of a speech that Bishop Lloyd intended to deliver (but did not have a chance to) during the trial. He wrote of their behaviour:

We, conspire against the King? — to undermine his Government by making and publishing seditious libels? What strange kind of men they would make of us! We, that not only by past obligations, but by our present interests, and all our hopes of this life and the future, have not only the strongest, but all possible motives to hold us to obedience and loyalty? In a word, we, whose holy Religion teaches us, under pain of damnation, not to rebel against our King, though he be of another religion; nay thought he should be an enemy to our religion? … We do not see that we have transgress’d the bounds of our duty.