learned by proof how dear the established religion was to the
loyal gentry of England, were also for moderate counsels.

At the very beginning of the new year these statesmen and the
great party which they represented had to suffer a cruel
mortification. That the late King had been at heart a Roman
Catholic had been, during some months, suspected and whispered,
but not formally announced. The disclosure, indeed, could not be
made without great scandal. Charles had, times without number,
declared himself a Protestant, and had been in the habit of
receiving the Eucharist from the Bishops of the Established
Church. Those Protestants who had stood by him in his
difficulties, and who still cherished an affectionate remembrance
of him, must be filled with shame and indignation by learning
that his whole life had been a lie, that, while he professed to
belong to their communion, he had really regarded them as
heretics, and that the demagogues who had represented him as a
concealed Papist had been the only people who had formed a
correct judgment of his character. Even Lewis understood enough
of the state of public feeling in England to be aware that the
divulging of the truth might do harm, and had, of his own accord,
promised to keep the conversion of Charles strictly secret.45
James, while his power was still new, had thought that on this
point it was advisable to be cautious, and had not ventured to
inter his brother with the rites of the Church of Rome. For a
time, therefore, every man was at liberty to believe what he
wished. The Papists claimed the deceased prince as their
proselyte. The Whigs execrated him as a hypocrite and a renegade.
The Tories regarded the report of his apostasy as a calumny which
Papists and Whigs had, for very different reasons, a common