the wicked and shameful part of a procurer, and calling in his
wife to aid him in that dishonourable office, yet, in his moments
of leisure, retiring to his closet, and there secretly pouring
out his soul to his God in penitent tears and devout
ejaculations.69

The Treasurer soon found that, in using scandalous means for the
purpose of obtaining a laudable end, he had committed, not only a
crime, but a folly. The Queen was now his enemy. She affected,
indeed, to listen with civility while the Hydes excused their
recent conduct as well as they could; and she occasionally
pretended to use her influence in their favour: but she must have
been more or less than woman if she had really forgiven the
conspiracy which had been formed against her dignity and her
domestic happiness by the family of her husband's first wife. The
Jesuits strongly represented to the King the danger which he had
so narrowly escaped. His reputation, they said, his peace, his
soul, had been put in peril by the machinations of his prime
minister. The Nuncio, who would gladly have counteracted the
influence of the violent party, and cooperated with the moderate
members of the cabinet, could not honestly or decently separate
himself on this occasion from Father Petre. James himself, when
parted by the sea from the charms which had so strongly
fascinated him, could not but regard with resentment and contempt
those who had sought to govern him by means of his vices. What
had passed must have had the effect of raising his own Church in
his esteem, and of lowering the Church of England. The Jesuits,
whom it was the fashion to represent as the most unsafe of
spiritual guides, as sophists who refined away the whole system
of evangelical morality, as sycophants who owed their influence