legal objections to the court's procedure, and the proceedings closed. On 6 Sept. the commissioners pronounced sentence of suspension from the exercise of all episcopal functions. Three of the six commissioners, Lord Rochester, Lord-chief-justice Herbert, and Bishop Sprat of Rochester, were ready to acquit Compton, but the king's personal influence induced Rochester to change his mind, and thus a majority was formed in favour of Compton s conviction. Two of the commissioners, Bishops Sprat of Rochester and Crewe of Durham, together with Thomas White, bishop of Peterborough, were appointed to administer Compton's see. His revenues were left untouched. The temporalities of a see were, according to the common law, the bishop's freehold ; Compton had the right to demand protection of his interest in them from the king's bench, and the attitude of Lord-chief-justice Herbert made it obvious to the government that the common law courts would not sanction a sequestration. Popular opinion, too, ran high in Compton's favour. 'This was thought,' writes Evelyn, 'a very extraordinary way of proceeding, and was universally resented.' The Prince of Orange at once expressed his sympathy with the bishop, and his wife not only wrote to Compton in the same sense, but appealed to her father, James II, in his behalf. James replied by warning his daughter against interference in matters of state. A full account in Dutch of the proceedings was circulated in Holland before the end of 1686.
Compton retired to Fulham and threw himself with ardour into his favourite botanical pursuits. But he was not inclined to submit in silence to his indignities, and on 20 March 1686-7 petitioned for the restitution of his see. He was informed that his request was referred to the ecclesiastical commission, and he heard no more of it. As one of the governors of the Charterhouse he refused, during his inhibition, to admit a papist named Andrew Popham as pensioner. Under date 10 Dec. 1686 he addressed a letter to his clergy severely criticising the order about controversial preaching issued in the former year, but suggesting a moderate course of action. He had already stated his views on the topic at a conference with his clergy held just before his suspension, and his address was published in 1690 and reissued in 1710. 'His clergy,' according to Burnet, 'for all the suspension, were really more governed by the secret intimations of his pleasure than they had been by his authority before.' When Dykvelt, the Prince of Orange's agent, arrived in England (1687), Compton willingly put himself into communication with him, and soon undertook in the prince's behalf to manage the clergy whenever a constitutional crisis should arise. He was at Lambeth on 18 May 1688, when Archbishop Sancroft and the six bishops resolved to refuse to allow the Declaration of Indulgence to be read in the churches. In June, Danby suggested to Compton to join the revolutionary committee which was then in active correspondence with William of Orange, and he was thenceforth regularly in attendance at the meetings held at the Earl of Shrewsbury's house. On 30 June he was one of the seven, and the only bishop, who signed the invitation to William to occupy the English throne. In the declaration which William issued forthwith, the seventh article dealt with the persecution to which Compton had been subjected. On 28 Sept. James II reversed his suspension, but the time for conciliation was passed. On 3 Oct. Compton waited on James Avith other ecclesiastics and protested against the proceedings at Magdalen College, Oxford, the maintenance of the high commission court, and the continued vacancy of the archbishopric of York. On 2 Nov. he was summoned to a private interview with the king, and was questioned as to his knowledge of the invitation to William, but he equivocated and gave James no information. Four days later he again appeared before James with other bishops and maintained the same attitude. On 16 Nov. the king directed Compton to collect money to relieve the poor of his diocese. Early in the next month he was in frequent communication with his old pupil, Princess Anne, who was residing at Whitehall, and, in order to detach her from her father and her father's fortunes, readily agreed to assist in her secret flight from London. With the Earl of Dorset he conveyed her in a carriage to his official residence, London House in Aldersgate Street, and thence with forty horsemen rode with her to Nottingham. There the Earl of Devonshire offered her an escort of two hundred volunteers, and Compton readily accepted the offer of the colonelcy of the regiment. In full military costume he marched at the head of his little army to Oxford, where he made his appearance, to the consternation of the inhabitants, 'in a blue coat and naked sword,' preceded by a standard bearing the motto ' Nolumus leges Angliæ mutari' (Burnet; Hearne; Duchess of Marlborough, Account, 16-18; Hickes, Memoir of Kettlewell, 52). But James's flight rendered active hostilities needless. On 21 Dec. Compton waited on William at St. James's Palace with his clergy, and was promised full protection. On 30 Dec. he administered the sacrament to the new ruler.
