would please any body; but an arrangement must be made.

What is now called a ministry he did not think of forming. Indeed
what is now called a ministry was never known in England till he
had been some years on the throne. Under the Plantagenets, the
Tudors, and the Stuarts, there had been ministers; but there had
been no ministry. The servants of the Crown were not, as now,
bound in frankpledge for each other. They were not expected to be
of the same opinion even on questions of the gravest importance.
Often they were politically and personally hostile to each other,
and made no secret of their hostility. It was not yet felt to be
inconvenient or unseemly that they should accuse each other of
high crimes, and demand each other's heads. No man had been more
active in the impeachment of the Lord Chancellor Clarendon than
Coventry, who was a Commissioner of the Treasury. No man had been
more active in the impeachment of the Lord Treasurer Danby than
Winnington, who was Solicitor General. Among the members of the
Government there was only one point of union, their common head,
the Sovereign. The nation considered him as the proper chief of
the administration, and blamed him severely if he delegated his
high functions to any subject. Clarendon has told us that nothing
was so hateful to the Englishmen of his time as a Prime Minister.
They would rather, he said, be subject to an usurper like Oliver,
who was first magistrate in fact as well as in name, than to a
legitimate King who referred them to a Grand Vizier. One of the
chief accusations which the country party had brought against
Charles the Second was that he was too indolent and too fond of
pleasure to examine with care the balance sheets of public
accountants and the inventories of military stores. James, when
he came to the crown, had determined to appoint no Lord High