ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY When James II ascended the throne distrust of his policy was universal, but suspicion was quieted by his declaration that he would defend the Government of England in Church and State as by law established, though he attended mass publicly as before." In the meantime toleration for Roman Catholics was socially if not legally established. All the City had gone in 1672 to see the life-sized representation of the Last Supper erected by the French ambassador in the chapel of Somerset House, and now, in spite of Proclamations and Orders in Council," crowds of Londoners openly resorted to mass at the chapels at York House and the Florentine and Sardinian embassies.'* Another chapel belonged to a Mr. Sandford or Stamford ; " there was a chapel and friary in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and chapels at St. John's Clerkenwell *" and Bucklersbury. The last built and one of the most important was that made by the envoy of the Elector Palatine in 1686 in a house in Lime Street, during the adaptation of which for service the keys were seized by the lord mayor, who only returned them after a personal repri- mand from the king. The strong feeling against the chapels in the City led to frequent riots, and the lord mayor was again reprimanded by the king in Council in April and November 1686.*^ The agency of the press was very largely used ; in 1676 Compton had earned James's resentment by com- plaining of a translation of the office of the mass issued by the Portuguese ambassador, and of Coleman's book on the papal supremacy.*' Bossuet's controversial works were translated and published in London as soon as they appeared in Paris ; ** hundreds of tracts and broadsheets were produced,*" and ' were sold on every stall, cried about by hawkers in the street as commonly as Gazettes, thrown or brought into houses or sent as penny post bundles.' ** Priests and converts frequented the coffee-houses eager for disputation, and the chaplains of the foreign embassies were especially active in visiting and catechizing on Sunday afternoons. Father Jacob of the Florentine embassy being particularly well known.*' Andrew Pulton and other Jesuits fitted up several houses in the Savoy as a free school, which they opened at Easter, 1687,** and this brought about the foundation of the first charity school by Tenison and Simon Patrick.*' Indeed, the Anglican clergy were as active as their opponents.'" From the first it was usual to ask them to meet Roman Catholic priests for disputation on some selected subject. The most famous of these conferences were those of 1671 and 1676, when Stillingfleet and Burnet engaged Father Godden and others,'^ that of 1687 between Tenison and Andrew Pulton,'^ and one held in 1686 before the king and the Earl of Rochester,'* the account of which attained a wide circulation. Some of the London clergy formed a small society for the production of controversial tracts,'^ while notwithstanding the example made " Reresby, Mem. lo Feb., 2 March, 22 May 1685. '° Evelyn, Diary, 4 Apr. 1672. " H. C. Foxcroft, Life of frit Marquis of Halifax, ii, 31 1. '* Scmers Tracts, i, 249. " Ellis Corresp. i, no. 41, 43. °° Hatton Corresp. (Camd. Soc), ii, 95. " El/is Corresp. i, no. 33. " Ibid. no. 41, 43, 65. ^ Hatton Corresp. (Camd. Soc), i, 137, 138. " Secretan, Life of Nelson, 23. "■ Thomas Jones, Cat. of Coll. of Tracts for and against Popery (Chet. Soc). '* Collectanea Curiosa, i, 326. " Ibid. ; Hickes, Several Letters which had passed betueen Dr. George Hiries and a Popish Priest, pref.
- ' Taunton, Hist, of "Jesuits in Engl. (2nd ed.), 445 ; Somers Tracts, i, 249.
^ Simon Patrick, Jutobiog. (ed. 1839), 128. "" Kennett, Hist, of Engl, iii, 454^
- ' Kidder, Life oj Anthony Horneck, 1 8.
'^ Burnet, Relation of Conference held about Religion at Lond., &c. " A. Pulton, A True and Full Account of a Conference held about Religion, &c. " Kennett, op.'cit. iii, 453. " Patrick, op. cit. 106. I 345 44
