Protestantism in Scotland - James Aitken Wylie

But the more the Jesuits strove to raise him to
the throne, the more resolved were the people of
England to exclude him from it. A Bill to that
effect passed the House of Commons on November
15th, 1680, and was carried up to the House of
Lords by Lord William Russell. It was thrown out
of the Upper House by a majority of thirty voices.
The contest, in which was involved the fate of
Britain, continued. The Parliament struck, time
after time, against the duke, but the king was
staunch to his interests. The House of Lords and
the bishops espoused his cause, and the duke
triumphed. The Commons, despite their zeal, failed
to alter the succession, or even to limit the
prerogative.
But the duke, notwithstanding his victory in
Parliament, found that the feeling of the nation,
arising from the Popish plot, set strongly against
him; and now he set to work to discredit the plot,
and to persuade the public that it never had existed
save in the imagination of fanatics.[8] The skill of
a general is shown in conducting a safe retreat as
well as in ordering a successful charge. Treasons
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