declared that the clergy ought to acquiesce in the possession even when the title was visibly and indefensibly bad. He zealously advocated toleration, and on the question of comprehension argued successfully against the proposed mixed committee for revising the ecclesiastical constitution, though he afterwards changed his opinion on this point. On all other matters he was on the moderate side, and opposed the enforcement of kneeling at the Sacrament and of the use of the cross in baptism. He was the author of a clause in the Bill of Rights absolving subjects from their allegiance if a papist, or one married to a papist, succeeded to the crown. He was chosen by William to propose in the House of Lords the naming of the Duchess of Hanover and her posterity to the succession; and, when the succession actually took place, in 1701, he was named chairman of the committee to whom the bill was referred. This was the beginning of a correspondence with that princess which lasted till her death. We find one of his descendants in 1729 mentioning the medals, gilt tea service and table plate, which had been presented to him by the princess (Add. MS. 11404, Brit. Mus.). It was in the summer of this year, 1689, that the well-known picture by Kneller was painted (Evelyn, 9 June 1689). He was chosen in April to preach the coronation sermon, which, with that upon 5 Nov. before the House of Lords, and that of Christmas day before the king and queen, was ordered to be printed. His ‘Exhortation to Peace and Union’ was published on 29 Nov. (Burnet Tracts, Brit. Mus.) Burnet was naturally much consulted by William regarding the Scotch church, and is probably responsible (indeed, he himself intimates this) for the letter in which the king promised protection to the bishops on their good behaviour, joined with full toleration of the presbyterians, though he himself declared in 1688 that he did not meddle with Scotch affairs. In the subsequent negotiations he was, however, shut out by the jealousy of the presbyterians from further influence, though he did his best for the bishops. His action was dictated by his prevailing desire to further an accommodation between the Anglican and presbyterian churches (Macaulay, iv. 10). On 13 Sept. 1689 he was placed on the commission for comprehension. On the occasion of the Montgomery conspiracy, Burnet was able, by information which reached him anonymously, to cause its miscarriage. He soothed William's feelings when the commons jealously granted the revenue for five years only. He urged the adoption of the Abjuration Bill, which the king wisely allowed to drop. During the latter's absence in Ireland Burnet was, at express desire, in close attendance on the queen. For his various political and polemical writings during the last three years, see the appendix to the Clarendon Press edition of his ‘History.’ The most important was the pastoral letter above mentioned. On the death of Mary he wrote his essay on her character. During her life she had had the entire control of church matters. At her death a commission was appointed for all questions of preferment. Burnet was placed upon this, and, when a similar commission was named in 1700, he was again included in it.
Burnet has been accused of undue eagerness to serve William's wishes, and his promotion of the bill of attainder in Fenwick's case is especially cited. It appears to have been a speech from him which gained the small majority for the bill, and his own justification of it is in an evidently apologetic tone; this was in 1697. In 1698 his wife died of small-pox, and in a few months he married his third wife [see Burnet, Elizabeth]. By her he had no children. In 1698 also he was appointed governor to the young Prince of Gloucester. He states that he accepted this charge unwillingly, as he did not receive the same confidence from William as of old, for the king had indeed resented more than once his occasionally intrusive lectures. His son relates that when, in consequence of the king's urgency, he assented, he asked leave to resign his bishopric as inconsistent with the employment, and only retained it on condition that the prince should reside at Windsor, which was in his diocese, during the summer, and that ten weeks should be allowed him for visiting the other parts of his diocese. In 1699 (Macaulay, iii. 230) he was appointed to attend Peter the Great; and he leaves a character of that monarch which later accounts prove to be remarkably true. In this year, too, he published his ‘Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England,’ a laborious work, over which he had spent five years. It was received with applause, except by Atterbury, who wrote against it, and by the high-church lower house of convocation, by whom it was censured in the turbulent meeting of 1701, on the grounds that it tended to foster the very latitude which the articles were intended to avoid; that it contained many passages contrary to their true meaning; and that it was dangerous to the church of England. The upper house, however, refused to admit the censure, on the grounds that it consisted only of generalities, and also that the power of censure against a bishop did not belong to the lower house. After frequent adjournments the matter fell through. The dispute gave
