CHAPTER I. JAMES II.'S PARLIAMENT. IMMEDIATELY upon the death of Charles II., the Duke of Policy of York was proclaimed king, under the title of James II. James II. Like all the Stuarts, he began with the fairest promises, and, like them also, he failed to redeem them. In addition to this sovereign's reliance upon France, which was repugnant to Englishmen, his views upon constitutional questions were bound sooner or later to lead to a collision. But when to James's arbitrary ideas of government was added an open profession of the Catholic religion, a conflict between the sovereign and the people became of course inevitable. The King's first speech in council was extraordinarily His speech pacific. "I know," he said, "that the laws of England in Council. are sufficient to make the King as great a monarch as I can wish; and as I shall never depart from the just right and prerogative of the Crown, so I shall never invade any man's property. I have often heretofore ventured my life in defence of the nation, and I shall still go as far as any man in preserving it in all its just rights and liberties." Yet immediately upon this he informed the world that his late brother had died a Roman Catholic, while he himself attended a public celebration of the mass at Westminster, to which he went in state. He found his counsellors in men like Jeffreys, now Chief |