United States or Austria ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It would seem that his Shortest Way with the Dissenters , which ironically advocated their extermination, was in answer to a sermon preached at Oxford by Sacheverell in June of the same year, called The Political Union, wherein he alluded to a party against whom all friends of the Anglican Church "ought to hang out the bloody flag and banner of defiance."
Its occasion was a dull and silly sermon in which a High Church divine, Dr. Sacheverell, maintained the doctrine of non-resistance at St. Paul's. His boldness challenged prosecution; but in spite of the warning of Marlborough and of Somers the Whig Ministers resolved on his impeachment before the Lords, and the trial at once widened into a great party struggle.
Sacheverell, a London clergyman, afterwards so notorious, had preached violently against the Whigs, who were foolish enough to impeach him. Sacheverell was suspended for three years, and in consequence became exceedingly popular among the Tories, and their party gained greatly in the country. Moreover the writings of certain pamphleteers tended much to damage the cause of the Whigs.
The memorable results of the Sacheverell impeachment, which contributed so largely to bring about the downfall of the Whig Ministry in 1710, showed how dangerous it was for statesmen to set themselves against the strong feeling of the majority of the clergy. The lifelong effects which this famous trial produced upon Sir R. Walpole have already been noticed.
The sentence on Sacheverell, that his sermon and vindication should be burnt by the common hangman and himself suspended from preaching for three years, was hailed by the mob as an acquittal, and celebrated by tumultuous gatherings and bonfires.
Defoe reasoned hard and joyfully to prove that the penalty was everything that could be wished, and exactly what he had all along advised and contemplated, but he did not succeed in persuading the masses that the Government had not suffered a defeat. The impeachment of Sacheverell turned popular feeling violently against the Whigs.
Sacheverell is said to have declared with great warmth that he would stake his seat on the issue, and that if he found himself mistaken he would never show his face in Parliament again. Indeed, the general opinion at first was that the Whigs would win the day. But it soon became clear that the fight would be a hard one.
The Low Church party had a majority in Parliament. The country squires and rectors, though occasionally uttering a savage growl, were for the most part in a state of torpor, which lasted till they were roused into activity, and indeed into madness, by the prosecution of Sacheverell. Harley and his adherents were compelled to retire. The victory of the Whigs was complete.
It is a relief to turn from the noise and virulence with which so-called Church principles were contested in Parliament and Convocation, in lampoons and pamphlets, in taverns and coffee-houses, from Harley and Bolingbroke, from Swift, Atterbury, and Sacheverell, to a set of High Churchmen, belonging rather to the former than to the existing generation, whose names were not mixed up with these contentions, and whose pure and primitive piety did honour to the Church which had nurtured such faithful and worthy sons.
Sacheverell was undertaken by a Whig ministry and a Whig House of Commons, and carried on before a prevalent and steady majority of Whig peers. It was carried on for the express purpose of stating the true grounds and principles of the Revolution, what the Commons emphatically called their foundation.
Word Of The Day