The glamour of Macaulay has somewhat softened the situation of those who took the oaths; and in his pages the Nonjurors appear as stupid men unworthily defending a dead cause.
The answer is clear enough; and, indeed, the case against the Nonjurors is nowhere so strong as on its political side.
All this the Nonjurors would have admitted, and the mere fact that it could be used as argument against them is proof that they were out of touch with the national temper.
What is known as the Bangorian controversy was due to the posthumous publication, in 1716, of the papers of George Hickes, the most celebrated of the Nonjurors in his generation.
Here their opponents had a strong case to present; for, as Stillingfleet remarked, if William had not come over there might have been no Church of England for theNonjurors to preserve.
The Nonjurors had not changed; and they were preserving the Church in its integrity from men who strove to betray it to the civil power.
Clearly, so far as consistency is in question, the Nonjurors might with justice contend that they had right on their side.
The fall of James was caused, not as the Nonjurors were tempted to think, by popular disregard of Divine personality, but by his own misunderstanding of the limits to which misgovernment may go.
Notwithstanding the discomfiture of Charles Edward, the nonjurors of the period long continued to nurse unlawful schemes, and to drink treasonable toasts, until age stole upon them.
You must not be angry, Mr. Fairford, that the poor persecuted nonjurorsare a little upon the QUI VIVE when such clever young men as you are making inquiries after us.
The horrible story repeated by the nonjurors pertinaciously, confidently, and with so many circumstances as almost enforced belief, had at length roused all Scotland.
But Thomas Thynne, Viscount Weymouth, though not a nonjuror, did himself honour by offering to the most virtuous of the nonjurors a tranquil and dignified asylum in the princely mansion of Longleat.
The nonjurors soon got hold of the clue, and followed it resolutely; their secret presses went to work; and at length, near a year after the crime had been committed, it was published to the world.
Some nonjurors leaned towards the ceremonial of Rome; others would not tolerate the slightest departure from the Book of Common Prayer.
Some nonjurors were imprisoned, some disarmed, some held to bail.
The nonjurors were numerous, and had, just before the discovery of the plot, seemed to be in unusual spirits and ventured to take unusual liberties.
While the nonjurors were rejoicing in this victory, he changed his mind again; but too late.
In a short time the ratification came; the peace was solemnly proclaimed by the heralds; and the most obstinate nonjurors began to despair.
After his death a bundle of the savage lampoons which the nonjurors had circulated against him was found among his papers with this indorsement: "I pray God forgive them; I do.
The Whigs triumphantly asked whether it were not clear that the old tyrant was utterly incorrigible; and many even of the nonjurors observed his proceedings with shame, disgust and alarm.
Whigs and Tories joined in thanking God for this great deliverance; and the most respectable nonjurors could not but be glad at heart that the rightful King was not to be brought back by an army of foreigners.
Of the tracts which they published at this time, the most remarkable was written by a deprived priest named Grascombe, of whose ferocity and scurrility the most respectable nonjurors had long been ashamed.
Yet the divergence of these Nonjurorsfrom the National Church was, after all, far more apparent than real.
Among theNonjurors it was further softened by political and social considerations.
On points of doctrine and discipline the early Nonjurors differed in nothing from the High Churchmen whose communion they had deserted.
Nonjurors and Scotch Episcopalians could only meet by stealth in private houses.
The Scotch Episcopal Church remained as a communion with which English Nonjurorscould fraternise.
Many Nonjurors therefore, and many who had taken the oath on the understanding that it only bound them to submission, absented themselves entirely from public worship, or attended none other than nonjuring services.
In relation both to Nonjurors and to persons who, as a duty or a necessity, had accepted the new constitution, but were more or less Jacobite in their sympathies, a question arose of far more than temporary interest.
But the Nonjurors were all High Churchmen, and that in a much better sense of that word than when, in Queen Anne's time, Tory and High Church were in popular language convertible terms.
During the earlier part of the summer, the Jacobites hoped that the number of nonjurors would be so considerable as seriously to alarm and embarrass the Government.
The result was that the nonconformists remained excluded from office in the State, and the nonjurors were ejected from office in the Church.
Nothing embarrassed them more than the analogy which the nonjurors were never weary of pointing out between the usurpation of Cromwell and the usurpation of William.
The swearers therefore avoided coming to close quarters with thenonjurors on this point as carefully as the nonjurors avoided coming to close quarters with the swearers on the question touching the practice of the primitive Church.
But, even in the history of later and more corrupt times, the nonjurors could not easily find any precedent that would serve their purpose.
Footnote 480: Much curious information about the nonjurorswill be found in the Biographical Memoirs of William Bowyer, printer, which forms the first volume of Nichols's Literary Anecdotes of the eighteenth century.
For the nonjurors were, to a man, zealous Episcopalians.
The public voice loudly accused many nonjurors of requiting the hospitality of their benefactors with villany as black as that of the hypocrite depicted in the masterpiece of Moliere.
The Presbyterian nonjurors have scarcely been heard of out of Scotland; and perhaps it may not now be generally known, even in Scotland, how long they continued to form a distinct class.
A few othernonjurors ought to be particularly noticed.
So strong was the national sentiment that nonjurors and Papists shared or affected to share it.
The oaths of supremacy and allegiance were now urged upon both clergy and laity, and all Roman Catholics and Nonjurors were compelled to register the value of their estates.
But whatever the discontent of Tories and Nonjurors against William might be all signs of it vanished with the landing of the French.
The apprehensions thus artfully raised among the people inflamed their aversion to nonjurors and Jacobites.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "nonjurors" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
