girl on whom suspicion had been thrown: but the cause of Her
Majesty's ill humour was a mystery. For a time the intrigue went
on prosperously and secretly. Catharine often told the King
plainly what the Protestant Lords of the Council only dared to
hint in the most delicate phrases. His crown, she said, was at
stake: the old dotard Arundell and the blustering Tyrconnel would
lead him to his ruin. It is possible that her caresses might have
done what the united exhortations of the Lords and the Commons,
of the House of Austria and the Holy See, had failed to do, but
for a strange mishap which changed the whole face of affairs.
James, in a fit of fondness, determined to make his mistress
Countess of Dorchester in her own right. Catharine saw all the
peril of such a step, and declined the invidious honour. Her
lover was obstinate, and himself forced the patent into her
hands. She at last accepted it on one condition, which shows her
confidence in her own power and in his weakness. She made him
give her a solemn promise, not that he would never quit her, but
that, if he did so, he would himself announce his resolution to
her, and grant her one parting interview.

As soon as the news of her elevation got abroad, the whole palace
was in an uproar. The warm blood of Italy boiled in the veins of
the Queen. Proud of her youth and of her charms, of her high rank
and of her stainless chastity, she could not without agonies of
grief and rage see herself deserted and insulted for such a
rival. Rochester, perhaps remembering how patiently, after a
short struggle, Catharine of Braganza had consented to treat the
mistresses of Charles with politeness, had expected that, after a
little complaining and pouting, Mary of Modena would be equally
submissive. It was not so. She did not even attempt to conceal