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came out the Declaration of Indulgence for Scotland, of Toleration for England. Dissent was egged on by the Court to revile the Church. Next year James heard ring in his ears the shouts of his packed soldiery at the deliverance of the Bishops; Massey fled over the sea to find a less troublesome task than the discipline of unruly Undergraduates, in the direction of the Convent of Blue Nuns at Paris; and peacefully, quietly, gently, out of all this scurry and whirl, Aldrich attains his highest post, and on June 17th, 1689, as if to assert the re-appearance of calm after the storm, he is vested with the dignity of Dean. From far away, James nominated a Pretender to the throne of Christ Church—Woodroffe, once Canon; but the Anti-pope felt his weakness, and retired to the deserted quads of Gloucester Hall.
Keeping to Aldrich's public life, the very year of his appointment the king issued a Commission, 'out of his pious and princely care for the good order, edification, and unity of the Church of England, and for the reconciling of all differences among our subjects,' to revise the Liturgy and Canons. To the Bishops on the Commission were joined twenty Priests of note—Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Patrick, and others; and 'with such men as these were mingled,' says Lord Macaulay, 'some divines of the High Church party, conspicuous among them two of the rulers of Oxford—Jane and Aldrich.' They met in the Jerusalem Chamber, and at the first meeting a dispute ended in the withdrawal of the Oxford party, Sprat, Aldrich, and Jane. The question was, the authority of William to issue the Commission; but the whole retirement bears the colouring of an unwillingness to fall in with the prime objects of the
