A new government had been set up in opposition to the wishes of the spiritual peers in the House of Lords and of the priesthood throughout the country.

A secular assembly had taken upon itself to pass a law requiring archbishops and bishops, rectors and vicars, to abjure; on pain of deprivation, what they had been teaching all their lives.
Whatever meaner spirits might do, Collier was determined not to be led in triumph by the victorious enemies of his order.

To the last he would confront, with the authoritative port of an ambassador of heaven, the anger of the powers and principalities of the earth.
In parts Collier was the first man among the nonjurors.

In erudition the first place must be assigned to Henry Dodwell, who, for the unpardonable crime of having a small estate in Mayo, had been attainted by the Popish Parliament at Dublin.

He was Camdenian Professor of Ancient History in the University of Oxford, and had already acquired considerable celebrity by chronological and geographical researches: but, though he never could be persuaded to take orders, theology was his favourite study.