The March of William of Orange Through Somerset - With a Notice of Other Local Events in the Time of King #224206

IN 1671, but ten years after the restoration of Charles II., in the face of Protestant England, and during the lifetime of many actors in the late civil war, the king's brother James, Duke of York, startled the nation by announcing himself a papist. Intense agitation ensued. Much debate arose about the succession to the crown, with special reference to the duke's exclusion, it being well understood and publicly argued that a king who is a papist acknowledges thereby that he is not supreme in the land. As to whether the suc cession could be changed, or how it could be done, there was a difference of opinion. It was to the interest of the kingdom, thought some, that it should continue only in the direct line; these forgetting, said the others, that the king, lords, and commons had a right to dispose of it.