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Updated: May 2, 2025
She empowered him to tell them, that whatever blame she might throw on Mary's conduct, any opposition to their sovereign was totally unjustifiable, and incompatible with all order and good government: that it belonged not to them to reform, much less to punish, the maleadministration of their prince; and the only arms which subjects could in any case lawfully employ against the supreme authority, were entreaties, counsels, and representations: that if these expedients failed, they were next to appeal by their prayers to Heaven, and to wait with patience till the Almighty, in whose hands are the hearts of princes, should be pleased to turn them to justice and to mercy.
In favor of this scheme, the tories urged that, by the uniform tenor of the English laws the title to the crown was ever regarded as sacred, and could on no account, and by no maleadministration, be forfeited by the sovereign: that to dethrone a king and to elect his successor, was a practice quite unknown to the constitution, and had a tendency to render kingly power entirely dependent and precarious: that where the sovereign, from his tender years, from lunacy, or from other natural infirmity, was incapacitated to hold the reins of government, both the laws and former practice agreed in appointing a regent, who, during the interval, was invested with the whole power of the administration: that the inveterate and dangerous prejudices of King James had rendered him as unfit to sway the English sceptre, as if he had fallen into lunacy; and it was therefore natural for the people to have recourse to the same remedy: that the election of one king was a precedent for the election of another; and the government, by that means, would either degenerate into a republic, or, what was worse, into a turbulent and seditious monarchy: that the case was still more dangerous, if there remained a prince who claimed the crown by right of succession, and disputed, on so plausible a ground, the title of the present sovereign: that though the doctrine of non-resistance might not, in every possible circumstance, be absolutely true, yet was the belief of it very expedient; and to establish a government which should have the contrary principle for its basis, was to lay a foundation for perpetual revolutions and convulsions: that the appointment of a regent was indeed exposed to many inconveniencies; but so long as the line of succession was preserved entire, there was still a prospect of putting an end, some time or other, to the public disorders: and that scarcely an instance occurred in history, especially in the English history, where a disputed title had not, in the issue, been attended with much greater ills, than all those which the people had sought to shun by departing from the lineal successor.
All these measures were regarded as symptoms of fear, not of repentance. The bishops, instead of promising succor or suggesting comfort, recapitulated to him all the instances of his maleadministration, and advised him thenceforwards to follow more salutary counsel.
The whigs, now the ruling party, having united with the tories in order to bring about the revolution had so much deference for their new allies, as not to insist that the crown should be declared forfeited on account of the king's maleadministration: such a declaration, they thought, would imply too express a censure of the old tory principles, and too open a preference of their own.
As soon as the purpose of the convention was discovered, the earl of Balcarras and Viscount Dundee, leaders of the tories, withdrew from Edinburgh; and the convention having passed a bold and decisive vote, that King James, by his maleadministration, and his abuse of power, had forfeited all title to the crown, they made a tender of the royal dignity to the prince and princess of Orange.
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