There the law itself was a grievance; and James had perhaps incurred more unpopularity by enforcing it than by violating it.

The Church established by law was the most odious institution in the realm.

The tribunals had pronounced some sentences so flagitious, the Parliament had passed some acts so oppressive, that, unless those sentences and those Acts were treated as nullities, it would be impossible to bring together a Convention commanding the public respect and expressing the public opinion.

It was hardly to be expected, for example, that the Whigs, in this day of their power, would endure to see their hereditary leader, the son of a martyr, the grandson of a martyr, excluded from the Parliament House in which nine of his ancestors had sate as Earls of Argyle, and excluded by a judgment on which the whole kingdom cried shame.

Still less was it to be expected that they would suffer the election of members for counties and towns to be conducted according to the provisions of the existing law.
For under the existing law no elector could vote without swearing that he renounced the Covenant, and that he acknowledged the Royal supremacy in matters ecclesiastical, [261] Such an oath no rigid Presbyterian could take.