[94] But, if this were so, it was to little purpose that the Act of Supremacy, in high sounding words, empowered him to amend what was amiss in that Church.

Nothing but a machinery as stringent as that which the Long Parliament had destroyed could force the Anglican clergy to become his agents for the destruction of the Anglican doctrine and discipline.

He therefore, as early as the month of April 1686, determined to create a new Court of High Commission.

This design was not immediately executed.

It encountered the opposition of every minister who was not devoted to France and to the Jesuits.