sinking into second childhood.

But there was at the court a small knot of Roman Catholics whose
hearts had been ulcerated by old injuries, whose heads had been
turned by recent elevation, who were impatient to climb to the
highest honours of the state, and who, having little to lose,
were not troubled by thoughts of the day of reckoning. One of
these was Roger Palmer, Earl of Castelmaine in Ireland, and
husband of the Duchess of Cleveland. His title had notoriously
been purchased by his wife's dishonour and his own. His fortune
was small. His temper, naturally ungentle, had been exasperated
by his domestic vexations, by the public reproaches, and by what
he had undergone in the days of the Popish plot. He had been long
a prisoner, and had at length been tried for his life. Happily
for him, he was not put to the bar till the first burst of
popular rage had spent itself, and till the credit of the false
witnesses had been blown upon. He had therefore escaped, though
very narrowly.49 With Castelmaine was allied one of the most
favoured of his wife's hundred lovers, Henry Jermyn, whom James
had lately created a peer by the title of Lord Dover. Jermyn had
been distinguished more than twenty years before by his vagrant
amours and his desperate duels. He was now ruined by play, and
was eager to retrieve his fallen fortunes by means of lucrative
posts from which the laws excluded him.50 To the same party
belonged an intriguing pushing Irishman named White, who had been
much abroad, who had served the House of Austria as something
between an envoy and a spy, and who had been rewarded for his
services with the title of Marquess of Albeville.51

Soon after the prorogation this reckless faction was strengthened