[380] Fraser found it necessary to resign his place; and Nottingham appointed a gentleman of good blood and scanty fortune named Edmund Bohun.

This change of men produced an immediate and total change of system; for Bohun was as strong a Tory as a conscientious man who had taken the oaths could possibly be.

He had been conspicuous as a persecutor of nonconformists and a champion of the doctrine of passive obedience.

He had edited Filmer's absurd treatise on the origin of government, and had written an answer to the paper which Algernon Sidney had delivered to the Sheriffs on Tower Hill.

Nor did Bohun admit that, in swearing allegiance to William and Mary, he had done any thing inconsistent with his old creed.