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The
YORK.
CHAPTER XXVI.
The accession of William and Mary was soon followed
by the passing of an act imposing an oath of allegiance,
to be taken by all persons who exercised any
public functions. Ecclesiastics who refused to comply
with this enactment within a certain time were to be
suspended, and if six months elapsed after suspension,
without such compliance, deprivation followed. A
large number of the clergy entertained great scruples
with regard to this oath. They had sworn allegiance
to James, and the question how far they were justified
in transferring their allegiance to the new sovereign was
embarrassing to them in the highest degree. After
much anxious thought and consultation, Archbishop
Bancroft and eight of his episcopal brethren absolutely
refused to take the oath, and submitted to the deprivation
involved by their non-compliance.
Their example was followed by many conscientious
and scrupulous members of the clerical order, who
became known by the name of "Non-jurors." Their
number amounted to about four hundred.^
Non-jurors maintained their principles, and carried on
a succession of bishops down to a comparatively recent period.
Cartwright, one of their last bishops, died in 1799; and
Lathbury (in his "History of the Non-jurors," p. 412) says
that he had "been informed by a gentleman residing in the
West of Engl.ind, that a non-juring clergyman was living so
late as the year 1815,"