deliberate falsehood. He was credulous and garrulous. The Lord
Steward and the Lord Chamberlain had shared in the vexation with
which their party had observed the leaning of William towards the
Tories; and they had probably expressed that vexation
unguardedly. So weak a man as Penn, wishing to find Jacobites
every where, and prone to believe whatever he wished, might
easily put an erroneous construction on invectives such as the
haughty and irritable Devonshire was but too ready to utter, and
on sarcasms such as, in moments of spleen, dropped but too easily
from the lips of the keenwitted Dorset. Caermarthen, a Tory, and
a Tory who had been mercilessly persecuted by the Whigs, was
disposed to make the most of this idle hearsay. But he received
no encouragement from his master, who, of all the great
politicians mentioned in history, was the least prone to
suspicion. When William returned to England, Preston was brought
before him, and was commanded to repeat the confession which had
already been made to the ministers. The King stood behind the
Lord President's chair and listened gravely while Clarendon,
Dartmouth, Turner and Penn were named. But as soon as the
prisoner, passing from what he could himself testify, began to
repeat the stories which Penn had told him, William touched
Caermarthen on the shoulder and said, "My Lord, we have had too
much of this."17 This judicious magnanimity had its proper
reward. Devonshire and Dorset became from that day more zealous
than ever in the cause of the master who, in spite of calumny for
which their own indiscretion had perhaps furnished some ground,
had continued to repose confidence in their loyalty.18

Even those who were undoubtedly criminal were generally treated
with great lenity. Clarendon lay in the Tower about six months.