chiefly to the indulgence with which they treated the sins of the
great, had reclaimed him from a life of guilt by rebukes as sharp
and bold as those which David had heard from Nathan and Herod
from the Baptist. On the other hand, zealous Protestants, whose
favourite theme was the laxity of Popish casuists and the
wickedness of doing evil that good might come, had attempted to
obtain advantages for their own Church in a way which all
Christians regarded as highly criminal. The victory of the cabal
of evil counsellors was therefore complete. The King looked
coldly on Rochester. The courtiers and foreign ministers soon
perceived that the Lord Treasurer was prime minister only in
name. He continued to offer his advice daily, and had the
mortification to find it daily rejected. Yet he could not prevail
on himself to relinquish the outward show of power and the
emoluments which he directly and indirectly derived from his
great place. He did his best, therefore, to conceal his vexations
from the public eye. But his violent passions and his intemperate
habits disqualified him for the part of a dissembler. His gloomy
looks, when he came out of the council chamber, showed how little
he was pleased with what had passed at the board; and, when the
bottle had gone round freely, words escaped him which betrayed
his uneasiness.70

He might, indeed, well be uneasy. Indiscreet and unpopular
measures followed each other in rapid succession. All thought of
returning to the policy of the Triple Alliance was abandoned. The
King explicitly avowed to the ministers of those continental
powers with which he had lately intended to ally himself, that
all his views had undergone a change, and that England was still
to be, as she had been under his grandfather, his father, and his