Seven Bishops.

Seven Bishops. These were Archbishop Sancroft of Canterbury, and Bishops Ken of Bath and Wells, Lake of Chichester, White of Peterborough, Turner of Ely, Lloyd of St Asaph, and Trelawney of Bristol, who were tried on the charge of publishing a seditious libel, but acquitted (June 30, 1687) amid the greatest popular enthusiasm, the very soldiers cheering even within hearing of the king. Their seditious libel was none other than a petition to James II. against his injunction that the clergy should read his Declaration of Indulgence at divine service, in London on the 20th and 27th of May, in other parts of England on the 3d and 10th of June. The order was obeyed in but four out of the hundred parish churches of London, and by not one in fifty all over England. It is striking that of the Seven all became Nonjurors with the sole exception of Lloyd of St Asaph and Trelawney. See Miss Strickland's Lives of the Seven Bishops (1866).