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It was the transition period between
the expiring dynasty of the direct line of Stuarts and the coming of the
Hanoverian house. Women took part in politics; sermons like that of
Sacheverell against the dissenters and the government were thundered from
the pulpit. Volcanic fires were at work; the low rumblings of an
earthquake were heard from time to time, and gave constant cause of
concern to the queen and her statesmen. Men of rank conspired against each
other; the moral license of former reigns seems to have been forgotten in
political intrigue. When James II. had been driven out in 1688, the
English conscience compromised on the score of the divine right of kings,
by taking his daughter Mary and her husband as joint monarchs. To do this,
they affected to call the king's son by his second wife, born in that
year, a pretender. It was said that he was the child of another woman, and
had been brought to the queen's bedside in a warming-pan, that James might
be able to present, thus fraudulently, a Roman Catholic heir to the
throne.


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