a few who up to that time had borne up boldly lost heart and fled the kingdom.  Other weaker spirits were terrified into a show of conformity.  Through many subsequent years the autumn of 1685 was remembered as a time of misery and terror.  There is, however, no indication of Bunyan having been molested.  The “deed of gift” by which he sought to avoid the confiscation of his goods was never called into exercise.  Indeed its very existence was forgotten by his wife in whose behalf it had been executed.  Hidden away in a recess in his house in St. Cuthbert’s, this interesting document was accidentally discovered at the beginning of the present century, and is preserved among the most valued treasures of the congregation which bears his name.

Quieter times for Nonconformists were however at hand.  Active persecution was soon to cease for them, and happily never to be renewed in England.  The autumn of 1685 showed the first indications of a great turn of fortune, and before eighteen months had elapsed, the intolerant king and the intolerant Church were eagerly bidding against each other for the support of the party which both had so deeply injured.  A new form of trial now awaited the Nonconformists.  Peril to their personal liberty was succeeded by a still greater peril to their honesty and consistency of spirit.  James the Second, despairing of employing the Tories and the Churchmen as his tools, turned, as his brother had turned before him, to the Dissenters.  The snare was craftily baited with a Declaration of Indulgence, by which the king, by his sole authority, annulled a long series of statutes and suspended all penal laws against Nonconformists of every sort.  These lately political Pariahs now held the balance of power.  The future fortunes of England depended mainly on the course they would adopt.  James was resolved to convert the House of Commons from a free deliberative assembly into a body subservient to his wishes, and ready to give parliamentary sanction to any edict he might issue.  To obtain this end the electors must be manipulated.  Leaving the county constituencies to be dealt with by the lords-lieutenants, half of whom preferred dismissal to carrying out the odious service peremptorily demanded of them, James’s next concern was to “regulate” the Corporations.  In those days of narrowly restricted franchise, the municipalities virtually returned the town members.  To obtain an obedient parliament, he must secure a roll of electors pledged to return the royal nominees.  A committee of seven privy councillors, all Roman Catholics but the infamous Jeffreys, presided over the business, with local sub-committees scattered over the country to carry out the details.  Bedford was dealt with in its turn.  Under James’s policy of courting the Puritans, the leading Dissenters were the first persons to be approached.  Two are specially named, a Mr. Margetts, formerly Judge-Advocate-General of the Army under General Monk, and John Bunyan.