It was universally acknowledged that, when the rightful sovereign was intellectually incapable of performing his office, a deputy might be appointed to act in his stead, and that any person who should resist the deputy, and should plead as an excuse for doing so the command of a prince who was in the cradle, or who was raving, would justly incur the penalties of rebellion.

Stupidity, perverseness, and superstition, such was the reasoning of the Primate, had made James as unfit to rule his dominions as any child in swaddling clothes, or as any maniac who was grinning and chattering in the straw of Bedlam.

That course must therefore be taken which had been taken when Henry the Sixth was an infant, and again when he became lethargic.

James could not be King in effect: but he must still continue to be King in semblance.

Writs must still run in his name.