On the same day all the prelates who were in town, Sancroft excepted, waited on the Prince in a body.

Then came the clergy of London, the foremost men of their profession in knowledge, eloquence, and influence, with their bishop at their head.

With them were mingled some eminent dissenting ministers, whom Compton, much to his honour, treated with marked courtesy.

A few months earlier, or a few months later, such courtesy would have been considered by many Churchmen as treason to the Church.

Even then it was but too plain to a discerning eye that the armistice to which the Protestant sects had been forced would not long outlast the danger from which it had sprung.